About the time political reporters were sitting down to lunch on June 24, BlackBerries all over Washington buzzed with an unusual email. The pollsters for John McCain's campaign sent out a memo challenging the findings of a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg. Hundreds of polls are released during a typical campaign without such a public objection. One finding in particular caught their attention. According to the L.A. Times, 22 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as Republicans, 39 percent as Democrats, and 27 percent as independents. The party identification in this poll, argued McCain's pollsters, "is greatly out of line with what most other surveys are reporting."

They're right. And that fact probably helps explain why the L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll has Barack Obama beating John McCain by 15 points (in a field including Nader and Barr)--a much larger margin than most other respected polls. (The Gallup daily tracking poll, the McCain campaign eagerly points out, has McCain down just 3 points.)

McCain's pollsters point to the findings of other surveys on party identification. That they would do this suggests just how damaged the Republican party brand is heading into the 2008 general election. Although the L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll shows a larger gap between Democrats and Republicans than all others--+17 for Democrats--the news for Republicans is uniformly bad.

Among the numbers the McCain campaign highlighted: AP/Ipsos's +14 for Democrats; CBS News/New York Times's +14 for Democrats; and Democracy Corps's +12 for Democrats. The average advantage for Democrats in the ten surveys the McCain campaign cited was 9.3 points. So Republicans are clearly at a significant disadvantage.

The conventional wisdom, adopted and internalized by many on the McCain campaign, is that McCain must move to the center to appeal to independents. So that's largely what he's done. Immediately after McCain became the de facto nominee, he toured the country touting his biography. Shortly after that he spent a week on a trip informally dubbed the "Places Republicans Don't Go" tour. Not long afterwards, he traveled to Washington and Oregon talking about global warming. He has launched radio ads explicitly targeting Hispanics and last month held secret meetings with Hispanic and gay leaders. Twice in recent weeks, McCain has participated in virtual town halls targeting disaffected Democrats and moderates.

One could reasonably argue that the strategy is working. In fact, McCain made that argument himself at a fundraiser in Las Vegas last week. "It's good to see yourself running, for us to be, most polls show us frankly two, three, four points down," said McCain. "That's good for this stage of the game, particularly considering the headwind we have on our economy. And I'd like to give you a little straight talk. There was a poll last week that showed me three points down from Sen. Obama and the Republican party 19 points down from the Democrats."

Not bad. But it is a strategy that carries considerable risks. By running as a centrist, McCain risks further alienating conservatives, the voters most responsible for getting George W. Bush elected twice. The Washington Post reported that conservative turnout "soared" in 2004, climbing above the impressive level that the Bush campaign reached in 2000. McCain's campaign isn't worried.