LA Times: Hillary 48% Obama 17%

[Herman Munster]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-poll24oct24,0,2039684.story?coll=la-home-center

The positive impression of Clinton's White House years -- which is shared, though more faintly, among the broader public -- is helping propel her to a formidable lead over her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton leads the No. 2 contender, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, 48% to 17%.

Her support has risen 15 percentage points since the last nationwide Times/Bloomberg poll in June, while Obama's support has fallen 5 percentage points.

As a leading actor in her husband's presidency, Clinton entered the race for the White House linked tightly to his legacy of personal scandal and political polarization. But today, the Times/Bloomberg poll found, nearly two-thirds of Democrats and nearly half of all voters say Hillary Clinton's famously unsuccessful effort in the 1990s to provide health coverage for all Americans makes her better able now to deal with healthcare as president.

More than 7 in 10 Democrats, and about half of all voters, say they would welcome a White House advisory role for Bill Clinton, who jokes that he would be called "first laddy" if his wife became president.

And 42% of Democrats agreed it was the "right thing" for Hillary Clinton to stick with her husband after his affair with a White House intern, compared with 5% who said it was the wrong choice.

[MADem]

1. These GOP tidbits buried in that article are a great deal of fun

In the Republican presidential contest, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is favored by 32% of GOP voters -- more than twice that of his closest rival, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, the poll found.

But danger looms for Republicans should they nominate the politically moderate Giuliani: About one-third of GOP voters said they would consider supporting a third-party candidate in the general election if the party nominee supported abortion and gay rights.

That finding comes as some evangelical leaders are threatening a boycott of the GOP next year should Giuliani become the party's nominee.

The survey, supervised by Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus, sampled the views of 1,039 registered voters nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

[fedupfisherman]

2. Shows some Repubs vote on principles

A lot of Dems that are against the Iraq War have no problems voting for a candidate that supported it

[fightindonkey]

3. A Candidate That Was Lied To Like The Rest of The Senate And Didn't Vote For It

Nice try. No dice!

[Adelante]

4. Against 4 top Repukes

Among all registered voters, the New York senator wins hypothetical head-to-head matchups against each of the four most high-profile Republican candidates. For example, Clinton tops Giuliani 47% to 41%, on the edge of the poll's margin of error. She beats the other GOP candidates by larger margins in the hypothetical contests.

Obama also beats all four top Republicans in hypothetical matchups, though his three-point margin over Giuliani is within the poll's error margin.