The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll has John McCain closing to within three points of Barack Obama, with a consistent message, continual themed attacks, and a news focus on foreign affairs all likely contributing to some movement towards McCain.

McCain has built a reputation as a free talking candidate, as likely as not to veer off message and drive his political staff crazy. But the addition of the highly thought of Steve Schmidt as his top campaign strategist has changed all that. From the Wall Street Journal:

The McCain campaign has been limiting the candidate’s exposure to the national press, cutting back formal news conferences and eliminating the more open-ended conversations on his campaign bus that represented his signature style. The goal: Keep Sen. McCain, who is known for riffing on any topic, from moving off the agreed-upon message of the day.

McCain has been focused on the campaign message, and his team has launched a pretty effective line of attack on Obama. The attack has been consistent and constant.

It unleashed a barrage of attack ads painting Sen. Obama as a celebrity who is not ready to lead, capitalizing on voter doubts about his ability to be commander in chief. The first ad, released three weeks ago, compared the Democrat to lightweight stars Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. That prompted a storm of news media attention and even a response video from Ms. Hilton. The result: For the first time in a long time, Sen. McCain was controlling the conversation.

Many Dems fear a replay of the same old Republican playbook, which has them defining the Democrat as tax and spend, weak on national security, and not in synch with “mainstream values”. Obama is being defined, and I think he needs to hit back before it is to late.

The WSJ poll also found that Obama still has not closed the deal with Hillary supporters, and that fact is starting to hurt his candidacy.

Only half of those who voted for Sen. Clinton in the primaries say they are now supporting Sen. Obama. One in five is supporting Sen. McCain. The Republican has reached out to Clinton supporters by offering steady praise for the former first lady and hinting that he’d be open to a running mate who supports abortion rights.

For those who think Clinton has no leverage those numbers should sober them up quickly. Maybe the Clinton block can play the role of Ralph Nader this year. In any case Obama certainly needs to lock down that vote, and lock it down quickly. The impact they have will potentially tilt a battleground state or two, and could seal Obama’s fate.

These disaffected Democrats could make a difference in big states where Sen. Clinton did well, including Ohio and Pennsylvania. Sen. McCain is reaching out to them with a coalition called “Citizens for McCain” led by Sen. Joe Lieberman, who describes himself as an independent Democrat. Sen. McCain himself tries to encourage Democrats by talking about his bipartisan successes.

If the Dems lose Ohio and PA the road to victory becomes difficult to figure. See my posting on the “Electoral Map”

McCain has also moved up slowly in terms of favorability.

Sen. McCain appears to be steadily gaining some traction with the electorate. The portion of people who view him positively has inched up from 39% in June to 42% in July to 45% in August.

Going into the conventions McCain has obviously righted the campaign ship, and in my view seems to have Obama playing a little bit of defense. We have a long way to go, but McCain is looking like a formidable candidate (again). A new McCain attack that hits the recurring campaign themes is posted below. The full WSJ/NBC poll is attached as a PDF.

WSJ/NBC Survey