Coming to an Inbox Near You: The Clinton Spotlight

Pollster Anna Greenberg said it makes sense that Palin runs better with men, because women are less likely to vote Republican than are men. She also noted that Obama's support with Clinton voters grew slightly after the conventions, suggesting that Palin is not tapping that market for votes, as the conventional wisdom would have it.

More worrisome for Obama is the poll's finding that he is underperforming with older white women, typically a natural Democratic constituency. According to the Greenberg data, McCain leads among white married women 55 percent to 42 percent. Obama also appears to be losing ground with white unmarried women, although he still holds a slight advantage over McCain, leading 49 percent to 45 percent.

Across the Ponds

Since Obama traveled to Europe earlier this summer, the McCain campaign has sought to raise questions about what it means for the United States to have a candidate for president who is treated as a celebrity abroad.

A new poll sponsored by the German Marshall Fund that tests attitudes toward the two candidates is sure to add fuel to that fire.

To the surprise of no one, Europeans are much more favorably inclined toward Obama than McCain. Nearly 7 in 10 Europeans felt favorably toward Obama, with his best reviews coming in France (85 percent), the Netherlands (85 percent) and Germany (83 percent). About one-quarter of Europeans had favorable feelings toward McCain; he was most well-liked in Portugal (35 percent), the Netherlands (33 percent), Spain (33 percent) and the United Kingdom (33 percent).

Europeans are similarly inclined when asked whether Obama or McCain would do more to improve transatlantic relations. With Obama as president, 47 percent of Europeans responding said, relations would improve, 29 percent said they would stay the same, and 5 percent predicted things would get worse. Eleven percent of Europeans said that relations between Europe and the United States would improve with McCain in the White House; 49 percent said things would stay the same, and 13 percent said relations would get worse.

Good thing for McCain that Europe doesn't get a vote this fall.

11 days: The long-awaited presidential debates begin at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Neither McCain nor Obama was the standout debater within his respective party, making pre-debate expectation-setting all the more important.

19 days: Former vice president Al Gore is the headliner at the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner for the Iowa Democratic Party. Is the man who used to be the next president of the United States weighing a return to the arena?