Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 3/8-12. Adults. MoE 2% (No trend lines)
By order of net popularity:
No Net
Fav Unfav Opinion Fav
Barack Obama 68 27 5 +41
Oprah Winfrey 57 21 22 +36
Ted Kennedy 56 37 7 +19
Steven Colbert 19 5 76 +14
Jon Stewart 22 11 67 +11
Michael Moore 18 17 65 +1
Howard Stern 26 31 43 -5
Bernie Madoff 8 16 76 -8
Bill O'Reilly 31 52 17 -21
Rush Limbaugh 29 64 7 -35
George W. Bush 27 68 9 -41
Rush Limbaugh can take solace in the fact that he's less hated than the nation's most hated person -- George W. Bush. But it's telling that our biggest political media personalities, Moore, Steward and Colbert are generally unknown to the public, while theirs -- O'Reilly and Limbaugh, have near-universal name recognition. And while ours are generally well liked by those who know they exist or have an opinion about them, theirs are pretty much reviled.
Let's look at the partisan crosstabs:
Dem GOP Ind
Fav Unfav Fav Unfav Fav Unfav
Steven Colbert 27 3 8 11 21 4
Jon Stewart 32 6 7 22 26 10
Michael Moore 31 10 8 32 16 15
Howard Stern 33 28 10 45 30 30
Bill O'Reilly 13 69 62 24 29 56
Rush Limbaugh 12 82 63 33 24 67
A third of Republicans don't like Rush, and two thirds of independents don't like him. Interesting that Republicans picked him to lead them... Howard Stern, interestingly, straddles some bizarre definition of the "center". Maybe he's the Broderesque ideal?
Now let's look at the partisan regional crosstabs:
Northeast Midwest West South
Fav Unfav Fav Unfav Fav Unfav Fav Unfav
Colbert 25 2 20 4 21 4 12 9
Stewart 30 6 23 10 25 9 14 17
Moore 23 14 17 17 20 15 14 21
Stern 34 26 27 30 31 29 16 37
O'Reilly 19 65 29 54 26 56 45 38
Limbaugh 17 77 27 68 24 71 43 46
It really is striking how different the South is from the rest of the country. It's a whole different world, one which doesn't like Jon Stewart but thinks O'Reilly is okay. But there's hope -- not even in his party's regional stronghold can Rush get into positive territory.
Update: Oops, fixed the regional numbers for Michael Moore.