Obama the strongest Democratic Candidate, Clinton the Weakest

Thompson is very strangely left out of this comparison, and it is especially strange given that he is number 2 among Republicans in the polls for the Republican nomination and also that he has been doing very well against the Democrats in the past. (UPDATE: Sean Hannity said on his show today that Thompson is also ahead of Clinton in these polls.) In any case, I wonder if Dems will start to desert Clinton if they thought that she was their weakest candidate. What is interesting is how little variation there is in the percent obtained by the different Republican candidates when you look at any individual Democrat. The range of percentages of Republicans against Obama is only 2 percent and the same is true when one looks at the Republicans against Edwards or Clinton. By contrast, there is a much bigger spread among the Democrats when you look at an individual Republican (6 percentage points is typical across the Democrats).

Possible match-ups - 2008 U.S. presidential election

John McCain (R) 38% - 45% Barack Obama (D)
Rudy Giuliani (R) 41% - 46% Barack Obama (D)
Mitt Romney (R) 41% - 46% Barack Obama (D)
Mike Huckabee (R) 40% - 46% Barack Obama (D)

John McCain (R) 41% - 42% John Edwards (D)
Rudy Giuliani (R) 43% - 44% John Edwards (D)
Mitt Romney (R) 42% - 44% John Edwards (D)
Mike Huckabee (R) 42% - 45% John Edwards (D)

John McCain (R) 42% - 38% Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
Rudy Giuliani (R) 43% - 40% Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
Mitt Romney (R) 43% - 40% Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
Mike Huckabee (R) 44% - 39% Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)

Source: Zogby Interactive
Methodology: Online interviews with 9,150 American adults, conducted from Nov. 21 to Nov. 26, 2007. Margin of error is 1 per cent.