According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, the strategy of the McCain campaign of making personal attacks on Obama’s character appears to have boomeranged. It has done McCain more harm than the intended good. Voters said that their opinion of Obama had recently gotten two times better, while their views of McCain had gotten three times worse.

The poll found that more voters feel that McCain is waging a negative campaign, in comparison to Obama, who concentrates more on explaining what he would do as President. The past few weeks which had the McCain campaign unleashing a series of strong political attacks on Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, have actually tarnished McCain’s image.

The McCain campaign was trying to link Obama to William Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground terrorism group. However, a majority of likely voters said they were not bothered by Obama’s background or past associations. 64 percent of them said that they had already either read or heard something about the subject. Several people said that they felt that McCain’s attacks on Obama were too rooted in the past, or too unconnected to the nation’s major problems.

Nearly 61 percent of the voters questioned, said McCain was spending more time attacking Obama, where as only 27 percent said the same thing about Obama. On the whole, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 percent of the likely voters said they would vote for Obama, 39 percent favored McCain.

The survey described the present environment in the country a very inhospitable one for any Republican to run for office. The November 4 election unfolds against the milieu of the recent economic crisis, a lack of confidence in government, and two wars. At such a time, McCain is trying to keep the White House in Republican hands even as President Bush’s job approval rating, at 24 percent, is hovering near its historic low.

The poll findings, that more than 8 in 10 Americans do not trust the government to do what is right, came as the presidential race enters its final three weeks. The final debate between McCain and Obama is scheduled Wednesday night, as the wide gaps in polls in swing states have historically tended to narrow. Though McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have scaled back their attacks on Obama, McCain suggested he might aggressively take on Obama in Wednesday’s debate.