This week PPP released two polls of Virginia – in the presidential poll, Obama leads Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich and Palin by 8-19 points. The 2012 election is still a long way away, but Obama’s current numbers, plus an improving economy, greater public appreciation of health care reform and the other accomplishments of this administration, and the Republicans continuing to behave badly, are very encouraging – if we can win Virginia again, I can’t see Obama losing the election.
The senate poll shows Allen and Kaine tied, with Allen having a 5-7 point lead over Boucher and Perriello. Tim Kaine would be our strongest candidate, but Tom Periello is also within striking distance. Rick Boucher would be a strong candidate, but I don’t think he will run. Kaine has better favorability numbers, and I think by the time we get to the election, Kaine will certainly win back Democrats and enough independents to get the job done. It is not certain that Allen will get the nomination, and the Democratic candidate would have a strong lead over Marshall or Radtke.
Huckabee is the most popular Republican within the GOP, although that might be affected by his recent debacle where he accused Obama of being anti-British because he grew up in Kenya and the British persecuted Obama’s grandfather during the Mau Mau rebellion, and then said he meant Indonesia, which makes no sense even under GOP/Beck logic because the Mau Mau rebellion did not happen in Indonesia. So, it’s pretty clear he meant to talk about Kenya, his attack on the President is unfounded, and he lied about it. Obama did return Churchill’s bust to the British, but he doesn’t hate them. He replaced with a bust of Abraham Lincoln. Which leads to the question of why do Beck/Huckabee and the GOP hate the founder of their party?