Bill McInturff, John McCain's lead pollster, called today's ABC News/Washington Post national poll (showing Barack Obama +9) an "unusual outlier" and chalked it up to a Democratic party identification margin that was higher than normal.

"I don't think these results are at all indicative of what's happening in the campaign," McInturff told reporters on a morning conference call. "Where I think this race is: It's a margin of error race nationally and it's a margin of error race in most of the most competitive states."

Although he praised the ABC News and Washington Post polling teams, McInturff said this poll and an L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll released in June showing Obama leading by 12 points are the only two occasions he's asked the McCain campaign to allow him to address the press. He noted that Democrats held a 16-point party ID advantage over Republicans in this poll, while, he said, most other pollsters are finding the margin between 4 and 9 points. "The L.A. Times poll was very unusual and this poll is very unusual," he said.

McInturff said the race is within the margin of error according to recent national polling and polls released in 12 of the most competitive states, which he identified as: CO, FL, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NC, OH, PA, VA, WI. Using (ahem) RealClearPolitics, McInturff said he looked at poll results from the weeks of Sept. 6-12, Sept. 13-19 and Sept. 20-23, and found the race nationally and in those states to be within a point in all three weeks.

"That's a fair approximation of the state of the race," he said.

(Listen to the conference call here.)

UPDATE: The Washington Post's Cillizza writes that the Post's polling director "explained that the actual party ID numbers among likely voters had Democrats plus six points. It was only when people who offer no original party ID were asked whether they leaned one direction or the other that the number jumped to Democrats +16."

ABC News polling director Gary Langer also comments on McInturff's statements here.