A new Gallup poll taking the pulse of voters on the 2008 race has good news for Republican candidates in general and very bad news for Democrat John Kerry in particular.
The poll shows the GOPers would be ahead in a vote — and that Kerry’s image has deteriorated since the election. In other words: for the Republicans: if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. For Kerry, it’s broke and may not be fixeable:
A majority of Americans say they have favorable views of Republican and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. On the other hand, more Americans view Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., unfavorably than favorably, and his ratings have grown more negative since his loss to George W. Bush in last fall’s presidential election. The trial heat matchups show the two possible Republican candidates holding an edge over the two Democratic candidates among registered voters.
Kerry may have been done in by a couple of things. Now that the campaign is over, many Democrats are less inclined to smile and say how good it was. Political pros come short of using the word “execrable” but do use a substitute phrase for that: “Bob Shrum.”
Kerry also probably wasn’t helped about some news reports claiming to report instances where he was irked by people voicing support of Hillary Clinton, etc. Or the reports suggesting his campaign didn’t end with his defeat in November.
No matter what the cause, the poll is lousy news for Kerry because it clearly means he’s trending towards being (if he already isn’t) political damaged goods. Political parties don’t generally giving losing Presidential candidates a second chance to run for the top spot and this poll suggests Kerry won’t be one of the exceptions.
Overall, the news is good for GOPERS:
Of the four, Giuliani is rated most positively, with 64% of Americans saying they have a favorable opinion of him and only 19% with an unfavorable opinion. Clinton (53%) and McCain (51%) have similar favorable ratings, although Clinton is the much better-known figure (only 4% do not have an opinion of her, compared with 27% for McCain). Clinton’s unfavorable ratings (43%) are nearly twice as high as McCain’s (22%).
What? They didn’t include Dennis Kucinich?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.