Faux Real

Despite the blabbering over whether Americans would vote in a Mormon president, whether a B-list actor on a crime show could be the next B-list Reagan, and whether McCain really looks gay in a knit pullover, a recent poll found that nearly a quarter of Republicans are unwilling to back top-tier hopefuls Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain or Mitt Romney, and evangelical Christians are still praying for their messianic candidate.

More Republicans have become apathetic about their options over the past month. A hefty 23 percent can’t or won’t say which candidate they would back, a jump from the 14 percent who took a pass in June.

Giuliani’s popularity continued to decline steadily as he faced a spate of headline headaches, came under increased scrutiny and saw the potential entry of Thompson in the mix; his support is at 21 percent compared with 27 percent in June and 35 percent in March.

The former New York mayor is running virtually even with Thompson, who has become a threat without even officially entering the race. The actor and former Tennessee senator has stayed steady at 19 percent. McCain, the Arizona senator who is revamping his nearly broke campaign, clocked in a bit lower at 15 percent, while Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, remained at 11 percent.

None of the top candidates has a clear lead among Christian evangelicals, a critical part of the GOP base that has had considerable sway in past Republican primaries. Giuliani, a thrice-married backer of abortion rights and gay rights, had 20 percent support — roughly even with Thompson and McCain who have one divorce each in their pasts. Romney, a Mormon who has been married for three decades, was in the single digits.

“Family values” are a bitch. One sign you’re a fallible human being who hasn’t been saved and you’re unelectable. (See “Jesus Camp“) It’s telling that the GOP candidates are listed off by the number of divorces in their personal histories. Personally, if you want to get an idea of what kind of candidate you’re dealing with you can leave the personal stuff out of it and check out their political dreck. [via LeMew]

Then again, polling results like these aren’t a surprise this early in the season. The race to cover electoral politics seems to get started just as soon as the new guy is voted in and we’re still another six months before the primaries. I wouldn’t declare a candidate myself, even though an old radical like Mike Gravel holds a special place in my heart.

As I said in the comments at Unsprung, I don’t know what it would take for one candidate to pull in front of the pack. Obama, for example, is a breath of fresh air as far as rhetoric goes, but too many folks I talk to think he’s a wild card. Not enough policy and voting history behind him to tell how he’s going to swing. But candidates like Clinton and Edwards and everybody in the GOP race feel too Old Machine to really root for.

Dean was really interesting last round because of the development of the netroots and this feeling that we were all particilating in a new kind of digital democracy, but all the new candidates are trying to follow his fundraising/marketing model without a lot of new imagination. Of course, the things that brought Dean down was very closely tied to the new media that held him up. Similarly, all the folks that became web-based leaders in blogging politics embraced a top-down model that really undercuts the community-based optimism from last time around.

Six months is a long time. It seems like the print and TV media are following the candidates around looking to catch the next candidate’s downfall, not necessarily elucidate their commitments to policy change, which, of course, is frustrating to those of us outside the beltway who want said change.