For the Latest on Iran

You should check out Michael Ledeen's new blog Faster, Please! on Pajamas Media. And here's his latest on National Review Online.

More '08 Numbers

Pollster Scott Rasmussen has new numbers on the '08 presidential race. He has Rudy Giuliani leading Hillary Rodham Clinton 47 to 43 percent and Giuliani leading Al Gore by an almost identical 46 to 43 percent. Those December 18-19 numbers are similar to his November 26-27 numbers, which showed Giuliani leading Clinton 48 to 43 percent and John McCain leading Clinton 48 to 44 percent, and his December 14-15 numbers that show McCain leading Clinton 49 to 44 percent. This is in contrast to the recent Newsweek poll, which showed Clinton leading Giuliani, and the CNN poll, which showed Clinton basically even with Giuliani and McCain.

I'm inclined to think that Rasmussen's numbers are closer to the mark–he was pretty much spot-on in 2004 and 2006–but it's a good idea to keep all the numbers in mind when you're analyzing this race. What these numbers tell us is that Giuliani and McCain run much, much better than a generic-brand Republican and are supported by voters who wouldn't give George W. Bush the time of day.

A look at Rasmussen's favorables/unfavorables is revealing. Only three potential candidates have significantly positive ratings—Giuliani, McCain, and the much-less-well-known Barack Obama. Here are the numbers for the Democrats:

Comments: Leading-edge baby boomers Gore (born 1948) and Clinton (born 1947) both polarize voters, with more strongly negative than strongly positive. Edwards's numbers are surprisingly polarizing, too, while Kerry is obviously the foreign object in the punch bowl to many voters. Only Obama comes out strongly positive, with a surprisingly high 85 percent willing to express feelings about him. Clark, Biden, Richardson, Vilsack, and Kucinich are obviously not well known, and their numbers don't have much significance.

Here are the numbers for the Republicans:

Comments: Giuliani has very strong numbers, and both McCain and Giuliani start off with a much more positive balance of opinion than any Democrat. Gingrich obviously has a lot of detractors, though not as many as Kerry. Romney, despite much recent publicity among political cognoscenti, is about as unknown as Hagel, Brownback, Hunter, and Huckabee.

How do the most favorably rated candidates do against each other? Giuliani leads Obama 48 to 39 percent and McCain leads him by a nearly identical 47 to 39 percent. That's pretty much what you might expect these days, given that voters have little information about how the relatively untested Obama would perform as president.