Will You Campaign With...

I haven't watched a lot of election night coverage this year (Tuesday night is pick-up basketball night, and I have to stay in shape in case the White House ever decides to host a blogging political scientists game)...anyway, I don't know whether this has been a year-long plan or not, but I was surprised that CNN had dropped its usual collection of waxworks and was instead counterprogramming with oil spill coverage, mostly ignoring the primaries.  So I found myself switching between Fox News and MSNBC...I'm not a big fan of the alternate reality presented on FNC, but I also have very little patience with Olbermann, and FNC does a much better job of actually reporting results on screen (mostly in the crawl). 

There is a point coming here, soon...oh.  This is how I found out that in FNC-land, the big question is just how far Democrats are going to distance themselves from Barack Obama, who (again, we're talking Fox's reality) is desperately unpopular.  Now, back in the real world, Obama remains just below a 50% approval rating...his favorable/unfavorable split is 53%/42%, thanks as always to the wonderful Pollster.com.  So while I'm sure there are a handful of competitive House districts he might want to avoid, and perhaps a few competitive states, he remains a moderately popular president. 

You know who is unpopular, though?  You know this one -- the Framer-bashing Sage of Wasilla, that's who!  Her splits, in case you haven't checked recently, are 36% favorable, 53% unfavorable.  Yikes!  She broke through 50% unfavorable a couple months ago, and is heading upwards at a truly scary rate.

So, the question I'd wonder about would be: will GOP candidates campaign with Sarah Palin?  More to the point, how will they respond to questions about whether they'll campaign with Sarah Palin?  Reporters are going to ask Republican candidates that question, right?  Attention, Greg Sargent and Steve Benen: shouldn't you be pressing reporters to ask this one?