ZOGBY: McCAIN 46%, OBAMA 41%

A dramatic reversal:

Republican John McCain has taken a five-point lead over Democrat Barack Obama in the race for President, the latest Reuters/Zogby telephone survey shows.McCain leads Obama by a 46% to 41% margin. . . .
This latest Reuters/Zogby poll is a dramatic reversal from the identical survey taken last month -- in the July 9-13 Reuters/Zogby survey, Obama led McCain, 47% to 40%.

This is surprising, even to me.

UPDATE: We'll have the latest Rasmussen numbers at 9:30, meanwhile remember that yesterday the RCP map showed McCain leading in the Electoral College count for the first time, and that the Intrade trend shows a 15-point trend toward McCain since mid-July.

Ed Morrissey notes that the Zogby poll shows likely voters, rather than registered voters (Gallup and LA Times/Bloomberg), and says:

Obama is in a free-fall. McCain got to the heart of the question about Obama, and especially after the crisis in Georgia, he has voters wondering whether Obama is up to the task of running the presidency as his first executive job in politics.

The shift began during the Europe trip, when Team Maverick went on the attack on drilling, then unleashed the "celebrity" message -- and kept repeating it, even after Team Obama screamed "racism."

And let me remind Allah of his prophecy: "Let Obama’s numbers drop another three or four points and we’ll see how they feel about negative ads then."

UPDATE II: JWF prophesies:

One can only imagine the panic gripping Team Obama this morning. Of course, this will give Obama a perfect excuse (with a free pass from the Obamedia) to go after McCain on a personal level, which will only do more damage to him.
Expect a full-fledged freakout from the nutroots as well.

You think the nutroots are going to freak? What about the PUMAs? They'll be ready to riot in Denver.

UPDATE III: Rasmussen: Obama 47%, McCain 46%.

UPDATE IV: Instapundit: "It's not too late to nominate Hillary! She'll even seem like a fresh face after all the Obama overexposure."

UPDATE V: John Cole whistles past the graveyard. Meanwhile, St. Hopey's half-brother has been found . . . living in a shanty in Kenya. The Audacity of Oppo Research.