Looks like Americans have a number of candidates they oppose in 2008 -- but not any who they particulalry support.

Regarding potential Democratic candidates, 47 percent of respondents said they would "definitely vote against" both Clinton, the junior senator from New York who is running for re-election this year, and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party's candidate in 2004. (Poll)

Forty-eight percent said the same of former Vice President Al Gore, who has repeatedly denied he intends to run again for president.

Among the Republicans, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani fared better than the Democrats, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush fared worse.

Only 30 percent said they would "definitely vote against" Giuliani; 34 percent said that of McCain.

As for Bush, brother of the current president, 63 percent said there was no way he would get their vote. The younger Bush has denied interest in running for president in 2008.

One would think that means smooth sailing for McCain or Giuliani -- but that isn't the case.

Among all choices, Clinton had the highest positive number; of those polled, 22 percent said they would "definitely vote for" her.

Giuliani was next with 19 percent, followed by Gore with 17 percent, Kerry with 14 percent, McCain with 12 percent and Bush at 9 percent.

This telephone poll of 1,001 adult Americans was conducted June 1-6 by Harris Interactive for CNN. The poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

So waht I'm seeing is a bunch of leading candidates with high negatives and little in the way of positive support. That means there is plenty of room for a candidate to arise from outside the group that conventional wisdom seems to lean towards as "leading candidates".

However, Captain's Quarters makes an important point about this poll.

It certainly has some interest, but at this stage of the process this poll is hardly determinative. The race will not begin even preliminarily until next summer, and the upcoming midterms may have a tremendous impact on these numbers, especially for Hillary. I would be interested to see the same poll twelve months from now. In the meantime, the poll is notable for who has apparently been left out: Mark Warner and Barack Obama for the Democrats (as well as John Edwards, who has slipped through all the cracks), and Mitt Romney, George Allen, and Condi Rice for the GOP, the latter just for the fun of seeing how those numbers would look.

There are real and potential candidates out there besides those included in this poll. Furthermore, there is still time for a surprise or two to emerge -- perhaps Newt Gingrich? -- and take the nomination orf one or both parties by storm. Could 2008 be another 1968 or 1988?

Posted by: Greg at 10:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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