3 Forbes Polls. confident, approachable and down to earth

[illinoisprogressive]

Down to Earth:

Fred Thompson has spent the last five years of his public life cultivating an image of an avuncular, low-key leader of a group of high-energy public prosecutors as the Manhattan district attorney on NBC's Law & Order.

So it's perhaps not too surprising that the newest declared Republican candidate has emerged as the most "down-to-earth" among 15 that are tracked in the September edition of our presidential poll, the Forbes '08 Tracker.

A close second in this category is U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. Perhaps not surprisingly, Thompson and Obama also came in first and second as the most appealing candidates--the broadest measure of voter interest and the closest to a conventional political poll. In terms of down-to-earth, 20% of those polled in our sample identified Thompson with this trait, and 19% attributed it to Obama. Since some of the nation's top script writers have been spending the last five years honing and polishing Thompson's image on Law & Order, it's not surprising that he also came in at the top on such indexes as "sincerity," with a 25% vote.

Approachable:

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is the single most approachable among the 15 candidates of both parties followed in the September edition of the Forbes '08 Tracker. The leading Republican, Rudy Giuliani, is a close second on the scale of approachability.

At the bottom of the heap are several veteran politicians--former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, who has still not declared his candidacy, and two Democratic senators, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., of Delaware, and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who's still failed to declare his candidacy, yet who's considered a possible Independent contender, is also among the least approachable.

Most Confident:

Barack Obama is the single most confident presidential candidate, ahead even of Rudy Giuliani, America's Mayor, who led the nation's largest city through the turmoil after Sept. 11, 2001. According to the September edition of our presidential poll--the Forbes 08 Tracker--Obama edged out both Giuliani and his principal Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, who came in third this category.

Substantially more men than women picked "confident" as a trait that would describe Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois. The poll shows that 41% of men consider Obama confident, compared with 54% of the women in our sample, for an overall score of 47%. Giuliani scored 45% on the confidence scale, while Clinton came in at 44%.

Most Appealing:

they did not have a write up like the others. Just pictures. Most appealing is thompson, then Ghoulianni and #3 was Obama.

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2007/09/18/forbes-tracker-confident-oped-cx_daa_0918confident.html

[aquart]

1. I'm guessing Bush's "confident" numbers were sky high?