Since I have not as yet seen this mentioned elsewhere on TPMEC (ehem), here is a shoutout of some more encouraging news for John McCain (snark plag'ed from Atrios).  Indeed, Adam Nagourney would find it strange that the spread at this stage is a mere seven points in favor of Obama, but such is the state of the media we have, not at all the semi-competent one we beg for.

Anyways, returning to Gallup, we find the following gem:

The question, part of an Aug. 7-10 Gallup Poll, allowed respondents to name any candidate or political party, without prompting of specific names from Gallup interviewers. This is a different approach than Gallup takes in its Daily tracking polling and USA Today/Gallup polls, in which voters are asked whether they would vote for Barack Obama or John McCain for president if the election were held today.

With the unaided question used in the new poll, 83% of registered voters named either Obama (45%) or McCain (38%) as their preferred candidate. Obama's 7-point advantage over McCain on the open-ended ballot is similar to the 5-point lead he currently holds in Gallup's Daily tracking poll.

45 - 38!  Sigh!