Two explanations for why independents are shifting to McCain in recent polls…
1) A lot of independents really aren’t, and that once they feel enough… “connection,” for lack of a better word, with a particular candidate, they start self-identifying with that party. Thus, people who called themselves “independents” a little while ago are now calling themselves “Democrats,” and their support for Obama is coming out of the “I” pile and going into the “D” pile… (I find this pretty plausible, and it gives the pollsters at least a little bit of an excuse for having such wild partisan skews in their sample…)
2) Independents have been divided on these candidates for the duration of the race, but as the you-know-what hit the fan on Wall Street in the past week or ten days, they’ve concluded they don’t want to take a risk on the new guy…