Poll: The old guy vs. the agent of change

WASHINGTON - Now more than ever, it's the old guy against the agent of change.

Ask people to blurt out their first words about the two presidential candidates and one in five say "change" or "outsider" for Barack Obama and "old" for John McCain, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Monday. Those are not only the top responses for each man but the answers that have grown the most since January, when fewer than one in 10 volunteered those descriptions.

Four months from Election Day, the survey underscores the fact that people see quality and question marks in both contenders as they struggle to control their images. Lack of experience is the next most frequently offered view of Obama, 46, the Democrat who came to the Senate from Illinois less than four years ago; for McCain, 71, the Republican senator from Arizona and Vietnam prisoner of war, it's his military service.

Obama is seen as warmer and more empathetic, Mc-Cain stronger and tougher. When people are asked whether specific words and phrases apply to each man, the Democrat does 12 percentage points better for caring about "people like you" and is 11 points more likable. McCain has a 24-point edge as a military leader and is 9 points more decisive.

The image differences even extend to the issues people most trust them to handle. McCain is seen as more capable on hard-edged problems like Iraq, terrorism and guns while Obama is preferred on domestic matters like the economy, the environment and education.

The AP-Yahoo News poll, conducted by Knowledge Networks, has surveyed about 2,000 people since November to gauge how individuals' views are changing during the presidential campaign. The repeated interviews show the candidates' images have evolved gradually since the fall, with both getting higher favorable and unfavorable marks as additional people form opinions.

Yet peer down to the personby-person level and things are more tumultuous. Just four in 10 Obama supporters have the same opinion of him that they had in November, with slightly more of the remainder turning more negative. McCain's backers are divided about evenly among those with the same, better or worse views of him.

Racial differences are clear. While whites are evenly split over which candidate better understands the problems of ordinary people, they are a bit likelier to say McCain shares their values, and prefer him by 2-to-1 for keeping the country safe. Nine in 10 blacks say Obama would do just fine in each of those areas, with only small fractions saying so about McCain.

The survey suggests Obama faces a bigger problem than McCain from growing negative impressions.

Both are seen favorably by about half of those surveyed, and unfavorably by roughly four in 10. But Obama's image has deteriorated with two crucial groups: 52 percent of whites view him negatively, up 12 points from November.

THE POLL

The AP-Yahoo News poll of 1,759 adults was conducted from June 13-23 and had an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. Included were interviews with 844 Democrats and 637 Republicans, for whom the margins of sampling error were plus or minus 3.4 points and 3.9 points, respectively. The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.