Will disappointment and anger at the Bush administration do significant damage to John McCain's presidential campaign? Apparently not:
"I am so angry at President Bush that I will not vote for Republican John McCain for president this November." In general, about 5 percent of Republicans and more than 40 percent of Democrats agreed, but those figures should be neither surprising nor terribly worrisome to McCain.
The numbers for independents - the swing voters in most elections - were larger. In Florida, 22 percent of independents agreed with that statement; in Ohio, 19 percent agreed; and in Pennsylvania, 16 percent agreed.
But further analysis found that most of the independents who agreed were Democratic leaners, and relatively few of them had actually voted for Bush in 2004.
In Ohio, 72 percent of independents who agreed with the statement identified as Democratic leaners, and 9 percent said they did not lean toward either party. The comparable figures were 70 percent and 19 percent, respectively, in Florida and 75 percent and 12 percent, respectively, in Pennsylvania.
Looking at it another way, only about 5 percent of those who said they had voted for Bush in 2004 said they would not vote for McCain.
We'll see how much this figure changes as Democrats work harder to tie John McCain to George Bush -- probably after the Democratic convention. But for now, at least, there seems to be very little appetite among voters to blame John McCain for George Bush's perceived sins.
That makes sense, of course. The election that determines who succeeds George Bush is not a referendum on George Bush. It's a choice between two different candidates.
