The Wash Post/ABC Poll has been one of the more McCain-friendly polls out there this election cycle, but they now show Obama opening up a double digit national lead.

Overall, Obama is leading 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and for the first time in the general-election campaign, voters gave the Democrat a clear edge on tax policy and providing strong leadership.

What’s clear is that the Obama campaign is functioning on a very, very high level, and getting their message out there in a most effective way. Taking the lead on tax policy and strong leadership? Al Gore and John Kerry can only gasp in admiration.

…Obama’s pitch to the middle class on taxes is beginning to sink in; nearly as many said they think their taxes would go up under a McCain administration as under an Obama presidency, and more see their burdens easing with the Democrat in the White House.

Not only has McCain failed to convince voters that Obama would raise their taxes, he has failed to convince voters that he would cut them. That’s a spectacularly big failure, and may reflect Obama’s success in critiquing McCain’s Health Care proposal (which would tax health benefits for the first time).

Twenty-three percent of all adults — and 18 percent of political independents — gave the president good marks, putting him within a point of Harry S. Truman’s record low in a February 1952 Gallup poll. The low ratings continue to have a dampening effect on McCain: More than half of voters, 51 percent, said that McCain, if elected, would largely continue to lead the country in the direction Bush has, and those voters overwhelmingly prefer Obama.

This is more confirmation that David Broder’s ‘Pony Boy’ president is the worst in history. It’s also confirmation that Obama has succeeded in disseminating his ‘More of McSame’ message.

More than half of all voters, 53 percent, volunteered in an open-ended question that the economy and jobs constituted the most important issue in their choice for president.

Obama is winning “economy voters” by 62 percent to 33 percent, nearly a 2-to-1 ratio.

Obama is finding the timing of the economic downturn to be somewhat fortuitous, but he can take credit for projecting an aura of steady-calm, while John McCain was been nothing but erratic throughout the crisis.

With the airwaves in battleground states reaching saturation level and coverage of the campaign intensifying, 59 percent of voters said that McCain is mainly on the attack, a marked increase over the 48 percent who said the same in August. And 35 percent of respondents said McCain is addressing the issues, in stark contrast with the 68 percent who said Obama is doing so.

Obama has stayed on message. And he’s managed to keep up a positive/negative ratio high enough that his attacks leave no fingerprints. McCain has payed a price for his personal attacks. Obama has payed no price for strong rebukes, like his roll-out of the Keating 5 video.

Nor has there been evident progress for the GOP campaign to label Obama as an extreme liberal: Fifty-five percent of voters see the Democrat as “about right” ideologically, and although 37 percent see him as “too liberal,” that is about the same as it was in June. By contrast, the percentage seeing McCain as “too conservative” is up to 42 percent, higher than it was four months ago.

In a sure sign of realignment, McCain is paying a heavier price for being a conservative than Obama is paying for being a liberal. I haven’t always enjoyed Obama’s move to the middle, so I am very pleased to see that he has, at least, been successful in inoculating himself against the charge that he is ideologically out-of-touch. Not so for McCain, whose choice of Sarah Palin destroyed his maverick-image. Most impressively, McCain’s attacks have failed to move the polls a single point since June in the ‘too liberal’ category. That’s not just incompetence on McCain’s part. That’s great defense from the Obama camp.

One might wish for better or different policies, but I can’t see much room to criticize Obama for his campaign. It hasn’t been flawless, but it has been the best I have seen in my lifetime. The only campaign in its league was the 1984 Reagan re-election campaign.

I’m not really surprised. Early on in this process, I recognized that the Obama campaign was better than my best advice and that I should be humble and let them do their thing. With the exception of the FISA vote (which, in retrospect, looks like an unnecessary case of extreme caution) the Obama campaign has either done what I would have suggested or come up with something better than I could have ever imagined. It is to their credit that they neither listened to the advice of the partisans of the blogosphere, nor did they let any attack go unchallenged. This polling validates their strategy. John McCain has been cut down by a thousand small-axe strikes, while failing to score any staggering blows.

Combine all of this with the breathtaking grassroots ground game, and the only word for the Obama campaign is ‘magnificent’. Three weeks to go. Visit your field office.