Kevin Drum notes that Steve Benen is impressed at how unenthusiastic Republicans are about their presidential candidates 52% rate the field only fair or poor vs 46 % who rate it excellent or good.

Drum asks and speculates.

"But how unusual is this, really? Maybe someone with a vast collection of past polling data can weigh in on this, but I'm not sure that we're seeing anything all that out of the ordinary. "

I tried to comment with an iPad which semi ate my comment but allowed me to gmail it to myself. Google beats Apple and I beat on Drum below

Come on lots of polling data are available at www.pollingreport.com for example that url/obama_fav.htm so www.pollingreport.com/obama_fav.htm and you can see that Obama has never been where Romney is with fav < unfav (see all throguh 2008). Same /C2.htm and see H Clinton generally fav > unfav and nothing much happening in 2008 same /k.htm see Kerry more undecided and not so popular but no particular dive during primaries. Overwhelming majority of Dems favorable ( rising from 53 fav 16 unfav Jan 8-9 04 to 82 fav 7 unfav Jan 29-30 04 in Newsweek poll). Dean not so liked ( and not the candidate) but rose fav 28 to fsv 42 in Jan 04 in usa today/gallup. Al Gore fav more than unfav in almost every poll in 00 one Fox after the election and 2 CBS. No swoon during primaries. Fa- unfav consistently positive and large in many many Gallup polls.

In contrast, Romney is fav-unfav= -18 and -14 in the past two polls ( 3rd newest a Fox with fav up). I find no other case of someone tanking in a January of a year which is a multiple of 4. Pollingreport doesn't go all the way back, but there was less polling back in olden days when we were early middle age.

In his next post he discusses McCain noting that Conservatives hated him during the primaries in 2008 and then presented him as the last hope for US Freedom during the general. This one is
www.pollingreport/l.htm search for McCain or www.polllingreport.com/l.htm#McCain
(I had to cut and paste the # as my Euro Keyboard writes it £. I will now go to twitter to add to #damnthiskeyboard thread).

Again nothing like this past month. McCain almost always polled with favorable well above unfavorable. I noticed no marked decline during the nuclear phase of the primaries and no marked recovery. He never came close to unfav-fav = 18% *and* he solidly lost the election.

Pollingreport doesn't go back very far. I'm not going to look at the sites of individual pollsters, let alone look for ink on paper. But I wouldn't be surprised if Romney is making polling history by winning a nomination with such high unfavorables.

I think very highly of Pearlstein and Drum, but they are talking about Michael Reagan as if he mattered at all. I'm sure he will campaign for Romney and I am sure it will make almost exactly zero difference. Romney's problem isn't that conservative opinion leaders (I mean Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes) don't like him. They will give their all for the party when he is nominated. His problem is that an immense huge giganticc plurality of registered voters dislike him. I doubt that anyone has ever been elected President after getting poll results like his.

This is mostly a statement about the relatively brief history of polling, I'm sure more people hated Lincoln, but you know, it is hard to win with 40% of the vote.