Bredesen-O-Meter

Kleinheider has the latest ruminations by Gov. Bredesen on the state of the Presidential race. Today, he's warning his friends in California not to get too excited, 'cause that McCain sure is a handsome fella:

[P]eople are engaged enough that they know some of the details, they can easily differentiate the individuals within a party. In other words, I think John McCain can get enough distance from George Bush to not have that be an issue. … I’ve talked to friends of mine in California who can’t even conceive of the possibility that John McCain would win and I just tell them, ‘that’s not the way it is in a lot of parts of the country.’ We can win, but it’s got to be with an A campaign.

Now, perhaps people won't be stupid enough to think McCain is literally George Bush's clone, but any careful observer could see that over the past few months Sen. McCain has abandoned his Maverick credentials in favor of adopting positions close to, or mirroring, those of the Worst President in the History of the United States.

As far as attractive candidates go though, he is somewhat correct in that this will be the first election in quite a long time where both candidates enjoy fairly high positive ratings. Though Obama's are higher, he and McCain are well liked by a majority of the country. The Real Clear Politics average shows Obama with a +27.8% favorable rating, and John McCain has a +18.2% favorable rating.

Of course, those numbers are bound to tighten up as we get closer to election day, but while political pundits seem to think Obama is the one in danger of being defined negatively, it is John McCain who has the softest favorable/unfavorable numbers, in that people are less certain in their feelings about him than they are about Barack Obama. Remember, Obama has undergone the most scrutinized political primary in the history of the United States, and yet his lowest positive rating is 56% with an average of 60% according to RCP.