According to Rasmussen:

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 58% disapproved. Those figures include 12% who Strongly Approve and 42% who Strongly Disapprove.Self-identified liberals were evenly divided-45% approve and 39% disapprove. However, only 19% of moderate voters approve while 62% disapprove.

Forty-seven percent (47%) of all adults say that "stunts like the MoveOn.org ad" hurt the cause they believe in. Only 12% believe they help the cause while 17% say there is no impact. Twenty-four percent (24%) are not sure. Again, political liberals are divided with 27% saying they help and 32% taking the opposite view. Fifty percent (50%) of moderates and 57% of conservatives say that these sorts of events hurt the cause the group is trying to promote.

Of course this seriously smacks of all the polls on negative political ads. The ones where folks are asked how much they hate negative ads, and they say "A lot!". But they listen to them and vote according to negative ads anyway.

HT to Captains Quarters who had this to say:

It's an amazing sweep. MoveOn managed to unite most of the country -- against MoveOn. Eli Pariser planned on making this into a series of ads, but he'd do better by burying the Betray Us theme and hope everyone forgets about it -- and quickly

Let's recap, it did absolutely nothing to help Democrats on Iraq, or to stop the war, but it did embarrass a lot of Democratic candidates who were put in a tight spot of having to renounce the organization that has been a major source of funds. Well done!

Gallup has a new poll out this morning that shows that the Democratic Party has a 15 point lead nationally over the GOP in overall approval. The Democrats also hold leads over the Republicans on the formally GOP-safe questions of which party would best maintain the nation's economic prosperity and which party would keep us safer from terrorism. The methodology revealed in the analysis accompanying the poll has no party identification figures for the respondents, so we don't know if one party was oversampled over another. But that's meaningless for my purposes -- the GOP should have such commanding leads in the national security and economic prosperity categories that sampling games would be inconsequential to the ultimate polling results.

The Republican party has handed the Democrats the advantage on what has previously been seen as central GOP strengths for decades. And this is not a one-time aberration. These dropping poll numbers started in the second half of 2005. If that isn't a clarion call directed at the Republicans to clean out their house and get back to basics, I don't know what is.

Is there hope for the GOP? Sure, but only if they start acting now. Why? Because Gallup also tells us that the advantage that the Democrats now have has nothing to do with themselves:

The recent gain in the Democratic Party's image advantage is due primarily to a sharp decline in Americans' favorable perceptions of the Republican Party more than an improvement in the public's perception of the Democrats.

The Republicans should feel happy about stopping the Democrats from surrendering our national security interests in Iraq and intentionally losing the war. But that's just one victory, and it will be meaningless if they lose more Congressional seats in 2008, let alone the presidency. If the GOP is serious about not only reforming its image but its message as well, they should start now. Next year will be too late.

NRO reports on the Straw Poll result from the Mackinac conference conducted this weekend:

Romney - 39.12%
McCain - 26.56%
Paul - 10.83%
Giuliani - 10.62%
F. Thompson - 7.15%
Huckabee - 2.55%
Hunter - 1.23%
Tancredo - 0
Brownback - 0.31%

While local Michigan blog both-right reports on a poll of Michigan likely voters

Giuliani 27%
Romney 13%
Thompson 13%
McCain 6%
Huckabee 5%
Brownback 4%
Tancredo 0%
Hunter 7%
Paul 2%

Huge differences. Keep in mind that the straw poll is of party activists that paid to attend a conference, while the voters are just voters. So, we can tell that in Michigan, (and other places) there is a huge difference between what the party establishment wants, and what the rank-and-file want. Mitt Romney spent a lot of time in Michigan, his dad was governor, he has a lot of organizing money so it's not surprising he would do well.

- John McCain's support is nonexistent outside of the establishment
- In fact it's so bad that Duncan Hunter is doing better.
- Mike Huckabee is not breaking through anything, in fact did not attend.
- Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani both do much better with the voters than the establishment.

Michigan has moved up it's primary and will be a significant factor in choosing the next president. McCain and Huckabee need to worry about that. The others, not so much.

It appears the announcement bounce is over for Fred Thompson. As you all know, I expected Fred to get about a ten-point bump and have that fall back five points to a comfortable range in the front. Well, as it turns out the bounce wasn't that high, but the falling back part was right, via Rasmussen's Daily Tracking:

Date	Thompson	Giuliani	Romney	McCain
09/21/07	24%	24%	13%	15%
09/20/07	23%	22%	13%	15%
09/19/07	26%	21%	13%	14%
09/18/07	28%	19%	12%	14%
09/17/07	28%	19%	12%	14%
09/16/07	28%	18%	11%	15%
09/15/07	26%	19%	9%	14%

Date	Clinton	Obama	Edwards	Date
09/21/07	36%	25%	13%	09/21/07
09/20/07	38%	22%	14%	09/20/07
09/19/07	39%	22%	14%	09/19/07
09/18/07	40%	23%	14%	09/18/07
09/17/07	40%	23%	13%	09/17/07
09/16/07	40%	22%	14%	09/16/07
09/15/07	39%	23%	15%	09/15/07

After hitting 28%, Fred dropped 4-5 points which clearly went right back to Rudy Giuliani. This is clearly a two-man race, at least at this point. The next big movement will be based on how well Fred does in his first debate scheduled on Oct. 9.

Over on the Democratic side, clearly Hillary Clinton has slid a little. Could that be attributable to worries over Norman Hsu? The corruption angle definitely should be cause for concern, but with John Edwards and Barack Obama implicated in Hsu as well, the Democrats won't have anyone to turn to. Still a fairly static race at this point.

The latest Harris poll shows Fred Thompson leading Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton leading Barack Obama:

... One-third (32%) of those who say they will vote in a Republican primary or caucus will vote for Thompson while 28 percent will vote for Giuliani. Much further back is John McCain, who continues his downward slide with 11 percent saying they would vote for the Arizona Senator, and 9 percent who say they would vote for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

... Just under half (46%) of those who would vote in a Democratic primary or caucus would vote for the former First Lady while one-quarter (25%) would vote for Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Former vice president candidate and North Carolina Senator John Edwards is further back with 14 percent saying they would vote for him. No other candidate is in double digits.

The only really surprising thing in this poll is that young Democrats will vote for Obama while the older (61 and over) favor Hillary overwhelmingly. A return to the Al Gore, Sr. Dixiecrat roots perhaps?

The Thompson lead is to be expected as he is the "new" candidate. His performance in the debates will be extremely important, should he falter, Rudy will grab this race and run with it setting up the election we were robbed of back in 2000 when Rudy had to bow out because of cancer and Hillary ran against lightweight Rick Lazio.

These are good, strong numbers for Thompson and he should take heart, however they could change dramatically should he not make a good showing. I suspect he'll do fine but also that Giuliani will get a small bump be his brouhaha with MoveOn.org so things should even out. Mitt Romney and John McCain are toast at this point and only can be saved by a complete upset in the early primary states.

On the donk side, John Edwards just hasn't found his stride and is hovering at 12-16% based on polling. He stands no chance of advancing if he hasn't grabbed the electorate by now.

Public approval ratings: President Bush: 29%. Congress: 11%.

That is the result of a recent Zogby Poll.

So what can you say about a situation that words can not aptly describe? In essence, you have two competing forces -- the Bush administration and the Democratic Congress -- in control of the Executive Branch and the Legislature whom the public absolutely despises? How about "You need to get your act together. Both of you."

It is difficult to pinpoint any one particular issue that has led to this drop because most of the problems are so voluminous that it's getting to the point where the public is longing for the good old days when King George ran the show. You have the emergence of a mortgage crisis that no one seems to know how to address; the current attempt to pass a piece meal amnesty program, the DREAM Act, in bold defiance of the public's will; the Democratic leadership getting lumped in with the far, far left due to the now legendarily disastrous "Betray Us" ad; the President planning on vetoing the bill that will de-fund the incredibly anti-union/anti-middle class Mexican truck program; refusal to deal with the importation of unsafe goods from China; and on and on and on.

While few assumed that President Bush's approval ratings could get worse, they have and the Pelosi/Reid Congress has been an absolute, unmitigated failure. 11% is the lowest approval rating in the history of the United States.

Let's put that into perspective: Bush is right up (down) there with Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and this Congress is less popular than the Congress that served during the time when half the country seceded from the union and a war broke out that saw 600,000 casualties.

Will things get better? Can they get any worse?

Even with the bump that Fred Thompson got last week after his official announcement, and with John McCain's bounce this week (see Gallup here), Scott Rasmussen still believes that this is a three person race on the GOP side, with no clear frontrunner. Each of the three that Rasmussen mentions (Rudy Giuliani, Thompson, and Mitt Romney) have their strengths:

Thompson is currently seen by Republican voters as the most politically conservative candidate, clearly an asset in a party where more than 60% of Primary Voters are politically conservative.

Rudy Giuliani is seen by the GOP voters as the most electable Republican candidate.

Mitt Romney has pursued a different strategy. While struggling in the national polls, he has built a solid organization and is leading in the Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary, and other early states.

But I think that the lead that Thompson has developed over Giuliani (28% - 19%) should worry the former mayor of New York. Nationwide, Giuliani is very similar to Hillary Clinton in that he has almost universal name recognition. Thompson does not, at least not as a Republican candidate for President. The more that the base of the GOP get to know Thompson's views, the more they will recognize that his brand of conservatism mimics theirs. At that point, the electability factor with Giuliani begins to even out.

When he was held captive in Vietnam, it probably looked like his time on earth was limited. After he got beat by Bush, it looked like he would be too old to run again. When he showed compassion for the problems of illegal immigrants, it looked like he had killed his political hopes. Yes, most of us believed that the hopes of John McCain being president of the United States had turned to dust.

Dust you say. Was it the phoenix that rose from the ashes. The bird is the symbol of immortality. Isn't Phoenix the capital of Arizona. Isn't McCain the senator from Arizona? Yes he is and like the phoenix, he has risen from the ashes.

In the latest Rasmussen report, McCain has begun to rise. He has pulled ahead of Mitt Romney (no big deal) and his "favorability rating" among Republicans has risen to 63%. This is just behind Fred Thompson (64%) and Rudy Giuliani (68%).

Even if McCain loses, it would be nice to see him in the race until the end. The man has fought for his country and not been afraid to say what he believes.

Senator John McCain has been slowly going up in the polls after having floundered terribly for several weeks. It would seem that by strongly staking out a pro Iraq War stance, McCain has gained a few points in the polls as well as gaining some of his favor with the public back. According to the AP, McCain has made several appearances with veteran's groups and has also campaigned with a banner that states "Never surrender."

This campaign strategy is far removed from the anti-war stances taken by Sen. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and sets him far apart from the Democratic field, but will it help him significantly in the Republican primary?

While the end result remains to be seen, a win would be doubtful Sen. John McCain has suffered a major setback on the presidential campaign trail as his poll numbers have been lagging in every poll in the nation. Most embarrassingly, McCain's numbers in is own home state has been disastrous. In fact, there was speculation at one point that McCain might not even win re-election for his Senate seat. For McCain, being tied directly to the failed Amnesty Bill was unforgivable in the eyes of the public. Will his public support for the war effort reverse the tide of negativity facing his campaign? It would seem that it will, but to what extent remains to be seen.

I read with interest NixGuy's post earlier this morning on Fred Thompson's post-announcement bump, and then took a more careful look at the polls he referenced. As I've explained before, I tend to like Rasmussen the most, since their accuracy over the past few election cycles has been better than any of the others. But the latest Gallup intrigued me, since it was solely a Republican poll -- so I didn't have to worry about weighting. This particular Gallup poll still has Rudy Giuliani up 7 points over Fred Thompson among those who are most likely to vote in the Republican primaries (33%-26%), but the underlying numbers suggest that Thompson has a much greater upside potential than does the former mayor of New York.

In short, the poll shows that Giuliani and John McCain's support levels have remained constant over the last few months. Mitt Romney came back down to his more or less constant level after a slight jump after the Iowa Straw Polls. The new "official" candidate in the mix is Senator Thompson. Since Gallup has included his name in their polling questions since it became apparent that he was serious about entering the race, his polling numbers have remained within a four point range. But the surprising figures from Gallup are those that show there are still an awful lot of voters out there who don't know enough about him for them to decide whether or not to support him.

It looks to be like about 5 points so far, according to a great post at NRO. Team Thompson put together an email saying this:

This week's round of new national polls is extremely encouraging. All are trending up for Fred Thompson. The CBS/NYTimes poll shows a gain of 15 points from a month ago. CNN shows us in a statistical tie for the lead, and the Rasmussen poll of likely Republican primary voters shows Fred Thompson in the lead.

I'll put the tables after the bump. Basically what we are looking at is a quick 5 points after the announcement. I don't think it's finished though.

• Thompson took his support directly from Rudy and is ahead or tied in 2 of the 4 polls.
• McCain seems to have stopped his downward momentum and may have restored it a bit. He's still finished.
• Romney is going nowhere. Fast.

Looks to me like a Rudy Giuliani vs. Fred Thompson race. Team Thompson taking easy shots can't hurt.

Mitt Romney's response? Polls don't matter. Politicians say that when they are losing.

The latest USA Today poll has Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mike Huckabee all gaining while Mitt Romney falls 4%. Fred Thompson only gained 3% in this poll taken over the weekend, the first since he announced he's a candidate. Pretty modest numbers for a new candidate. The numbers also suggest as I noted earlier that McCain is indeed back in the race and must now be repositioned back into the top tier.

However, the latest Rasmussen poll shows Thompson leading Giuliani 26% to 22% meaning Fred took some votes from America's Mayor. The Rasmussen poll has historically had Giuliani closer to the field than others so no great change. That's a four point jump for Thompson, not a significant leap but something he may be able to build on.

With regard to Fred Thompson, I expected to see at least an 8-10 point surge after his announcement, but his long, drawn out pre-campaign nullified any great bump. The numbers I find intriguiging for Thompson is the high percentage who don't know him:

Thompson is significantly less well known than Giuliani or McCain - 28% of Republicans say they've never heard of Thompson, compared with 8% for Giuliani and 9% for McCain.

Among those Republicans who know all four leading contenders, Giuliani and Thompson are essentially tied. In a head-to-head race among all GOP voters, Giuliani bests Thompson by 13 points, 53%-40%.

How can 28% not know who Fred is? That says to me that he was not very effective in getting his name out over the summer, a major campaign flaw and unforgiveable for a candidate who has been on a top-rated show for a couple of years. Apparently, those who do know of Thompson like him as he is tied with Rudy in that category.

Ron Paul, Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo all posted the usual horrid numbers. It's surprising that Ron Paul hasn't broken 4% in any USA Today poll given his supposed clout in the race and his landslide victories in text and internet polls. I guess it doesn't translate to the real world.

A recent poll by Pew has noted that both Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, the front runners of their respective party's nomination for the presidency, are both considered the least religious of all the presidential candidates. The same poll, mentioned in an AP report, also noted that 7 out of 10 of the people polled believe it is vital that a president have strong religious beliefs.

The politics of religion played a tremendous role in the shaping of politics over the last 30 years. Jimmy Carter rose to prominence on the campaign trail as people considered him a moral man based on his being a born again Christian. The Reagan Revolution was propelled in great part to Reagan's affiliation with the Evangelicals. Similarly, to great extent, George Bush is in the White House today thanks to the support of him by a significant majority of the 70 million Evangelical Christians in the United States.

Thus, it becomes curious that the front runners for the Democratic and Republican ticket would both be the two are considered the least religious although, quite honestly, public perception is not necessarily what is accurate. Only Clinton and Giuliani truly know what their own personal faith is, but in a nation were religion plays a central role in the identity of its people, how a leader practices his or her faith will always be a central issue.

It's been fun pointing out the signposts that mark the way to John McCain's withdrawal from the presidential race. Here's another one, a Rasmussen poll for Arizona:

Arizona is the home state for John McCain, but Fred Thompson is the strongest GOP Presidential candidate in the state at this time.

A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found that Thompson leads Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton by seventeen percentage points, 51% to 34%. Thompson will be formally announcing his candidacy this week.

McCain's edge over Hillary Clinton was 46% to 36%. Which means that John McCain lost 5 points against Fred Thompson in his home state. Clearly John McCain is very much over. I am now intensely interested in the 3rd quarter fundraising numbers for the McCain campaign.

Despite the best efforts of our esteemed Democratic leadership, the American public believes that yes, we can win the war in Iraq:

A majority of Americans - 54% - believe the United States has not lost the war in Iraq, but there is dramatic disagreement on the question between Democrats and Republicans, a new UPI/Zogby Interactive poll shows. While two in three Democrats (66%) said the war effort has already failed, just 9% of Republicans say the same.

The poll comes ahead of a September report to Congress by David Petraeus, commander of the multi-national force in Iraq, on the progress of the so-called surge in quelling attacks by insurgents and creating an atmosphere where the new Iraqi government can develop.

The good news for Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi is that 86% of the people in their own party believe the surge is not working so their constant refrain of retreat and loss is working on the party which is heavily invested in our losing. At least someone in the country is actually paying attention to them.

The media has been beating the drum of losing so incessantly that it seems people just stopped paying attention to them. Perhaps they're reading alternate coverage that paints a more realistic picture of the actual situation, one in which we are in fact making progress but still have a ways to go.