Poll: GOP unhappy w/prez candidates

A recent poll by the New York Times finds that Republican voters are not happy with the current choice of Republicans for the 2008 presidential race, and a surprising number believe a Democrat will capture the White House next year.

So, the men above (clockwise from top left: Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback, Mitt Romney and John McCain) might not fit the bill with voters.

Some of the results from the poll:

• 40% of Republicans said they expect a Democrat to win the White House in '08

• Conversely, just 46% of Republicans said they believe a Republican could win

• Only 12% of Democrats said they think a Republican will win the White House

The Times/CBS News Poll was designed to survey more Republicans than usual to provide a better snapshot of the mood of the party.

The story contained some telling quotes from a few Republican voters, too:

"'There is going to be so much antiwar in the news media that there is no way the Republicans are going to win,' Randy Miller, 54, a Republican from Kansas, said in a follow-up interview after participating in the poll. 'The Democrats will win because of the war. I think the Republicans just won’t vote.'"

And another...

"'I think the Republican candidate has not appeared yet,' said Richard Gerrish, 69, a Republican from Greenacres, Fla. 'The ones we have now will run out of steam. Someone will come along later that will do better.'"

The poll also found:

• Nearly 6 in 10 Democrats in the poll said they are satisfied with the Democratic candidates now in the race; Nearly 6 in 10 Republicans said they wanted more choices

• Amazingly, the poll also found that 75% of GOPers APPROVE of the job that President Bush is doing, and 34% of Americans approve of Bush's job performance, up from 29% a month ago.

• Just 34% of respondents have a favorable view of the Republican Party; The worst it has been since December 1998. Conversely, 47% said they have a positive view of the Democratic Party.

And by a 20-point margin, respondents said that if the election were held today they would vote for an unnamed Democrat for president rather than a Republican. That was perhaps the most surprising statistic to me at this very early point in the race.

However, as the story states, Republican strategists aren't surprised at this early stage:

"'People should be concerned — we've had a tough last year and a half or so,' said Glenn Bolger, a Republican strategist. 'But if you go back in time to 1991, the Democrats had a lot of the same concerns, both about the candidates running and their possibility of winning. And it turned out pretty well for them.'"

These next stats are nothing short of amazing, considering how the War in Iraq is going.

• The poll found an increase in approval of Bush's management of the War in Iraq and how he is handling foreign policy - that number rose to 28% from 23%.

• However, in the wake of the Washington Post report on Walter Reed, 76% including 57% of Republicans, said the White House has not done all it can to deal with the needs and problems facing returning military troops from Iraq.

So, there's evidence that the hackneyed "Support the Troops" slogan, pimped by Republicans at every opportunity, is losing its luster.

I wonder which Republican could emerge as a darkhorse candidate in 2008? Here's my guess...

I have this much of a chance to be president!

The man who practically invented partisan warfare - Newt Gingrich. I pray he enters the race, because there are very few Republicans I dislike as much as this world-class hypocrite. He's deserving of an entirely different post altogether, which I'll probably type on the plane tomorrow.

I basically just brought you this poll because I thought it was interesting, not because I feel it's indicative of how the 2008 election will go. It's ridiculously early to be putting hardly any stock in any sort of presidential poll - really the only value they have is fundraising at this stage of the game.

The national telephone poll was conducted Wednesday through Sunday with 1,362 adults, including 698 Republicans. The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus 3 percentage points and 4 percentage points for Republicans.

Top 5 photos from AP