Barack Obama would dearly love to flip Florida, and his selection of Joe Biden may have had some designs on seniors in the Sunshine State. If so, the latest polling from Strategic Vision can’t make Obama very happy.  In a survey of 1200 likely voters, John McCain leads Florida by seven points in a three-way race with Bob Barr, his largest lead in the state thus far, 49%-42%, with Barr getting one point and eight percent undecided.

Real Clear Politics shows that the race had been tightening in Florida until three weeks ago.  In July, McCain and Obama had been tied for two weeks and Obama had gained significant momentum.  Now all of that has disappeared, and Obama has slid all the way back to where he was after Hillary’s withdrawal from the race in June.  This tracks closely to national polling, where Obama has slid catastrophically since clinching the nomination.

The survey has other interesting results.  Floridians used to have strong opposition to off-shore drilling, but no longer.  They now strongly support it, 62%-27%.  Democrat Bill Nelson gets better job approval ratings for his Senate work than Republican Mel Martinez, 55% to 48% respectively.  Charlie Crist remains popular as governor, but not as a potential McCain running mate.  He has a 59% approval rating as governor, but only 34% favor McCain adding him to the ticket, with 52% opposed.

Florida can come out of the toss-up category and go back into the red-state column.  If Obama hoped that Barr would impact McCain in the south, he’s going to be disappointed.  Given that this survey took place during and after the Biden selection, it looks like that was a bust as well.