From Gallup:
John McCain's 67% favorable rating is the highest of any of the three major candidates running for president, and ties for his highest in Gallup polling history.
McCain's favorable rating matches the 67% he received in February 2000, when he was in the middle of his first run for president. But since that point, McCain's image in the eyes of Americans has undergone significant shifts. The Arizona senator had favorable ratings in the 57% range as he began his presidential campaign last winter, but as his campaign floundered this past summer, his favorable rating dropped as low as 41%.
How is it that a man that strongly supports the policies of George Bush, whose approval rating is slightly lower than herpes, can be so popular?
The answer is easy...
In any other election year, we'd be defining this guy as a war-loving, economy ignoring, pandering, flip-flopping old-timer. But we are too busy defining another democrat to focus on what really matters.
I'm all for Obama and Clinton battling for the nomination into the spring and summer...if they start telling me why THEY should be president and not why the other candidate shouldn't be.
The opportunity that we are totally missing is that we could be in the midst of two campaigns defining John McCain as an out-of-touch Washington insider who would love nothing more than to drop bombs on anyone who dares to defy us.
I dare both the Obama and Clinton campaigns to immediately go on the offensive against the McCain campaign. It's a win-win situation. The candidate that does not win the nomination can justifiably take credit for any general election win by a democrat.
To see the Obama and Clinton campaign solely go after McCain would not only improve our chances in November, but might actually get rid of this sickening, dem vs. dem, feeling that I have in my stomach.
Some may say that this is an unrealistic request and that it'll never happen. To those people, I say, why is it naive to call on campaigns to focus beyond their own personal presidential goals, but on what is most important? Every day, I believe more and more that only a unified democratic party can reclaim the White House.
Hopefully the Penns and Axelrods of the world will read this and get their heads out of their asses.