By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Producer

LONG ISLAND, NY (Oct. 15, 2008) – Tonight will be the final presidential debate, and Sen. Barack Obama will walk on stage with the largest lead over his Republican rival Sen. John McCain since the two squared off,  according to a new national poll.

Obama now leads McCain 53 percent to 39 percent among those surveyed in the CBS/New York Times poll.  This 14-point margin is an increase of 11-points in one week and appears to be linked to two events: Obama’s performance in the second debate and the negative impact of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin’s negative attacks on the first-term senator. 

There is more bad news in this poll for the Arizona senator.  He’s losing more ground with Independents, a group he’s been battling to keep since earning the nomination.  Last week he was leading Obama among Independents, but this week his Democratic challenger bested him and leads by 18 points. 

The reason why?

Of those likely voters surveyed in the poll, 21 percent said the top two reasons for shifting to Obama were McCain’s attacks on Obama and the Arizona senator’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

While McCain could remedy one of these problems and tone down the rhetoric of negative attacks, he’s hardly in a position to dump his running mate 22 days before the election.  Tonight’s performance could be his last best effort in slowing Obama’s roll.

As for how Obama scored with likely voters, he was viewed more favorably and seen as running a more positive campaign. Sixty-one percent of those folks surveyed thought McCain spent more time on the attack and less on the issues.  Only 27 percent felt that way about Obama.   While McCain’s favorable rating showed a decline, Obama gained with voters and is now viewed “favorable” by half of the registered voters; McCain was viewed “favorably” by only 32 percent.

Tonight’s debate could be one of the last opportunities for both candidates to work on wooing those undecided voters to their camp.  But if this poll is any indication, the Republican nominee has a bigger task ahead.

When voters were asked about “personality and temperament” of the candidate to be the next commander and chief: Obama received 69 percent of those surveyed to McCain’s 53 percent. 

Polls are always changing, so each candidate had better be on his game tonight.

By the way …

…I e-mailed the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Justice Department yesterday  to see if there was an update on my questions linking “hate speech” to  “hate crimes,” based on my story from last week.  No word yet, but I’ll keep checking.