I know this is hard for us political junkies to understand, but according to the latest Pew poll, more than 75% of Americans have not thought a lot about 2008 presidential election. Pew says,

The public's lack of engagement in the campaign is reflected in how people are reacting to the large slates of potential candidates in both parties. Of the announced and highly probable candidates, only a few in each party are widely familiar. The results of in-depth questions suggest that the images of even the well-known candidates are fairly thin.

One of the most interesting results is that Democrats are paying far more attention to the race than Republicans (31% - 20%) and 46% of Democrats put forward a name of a candidate they might support, only 29% of Republicans did.

Also, there appears to be a 3-way race in the eyes of those early voters who are paying attention for the Democratic nomination - Hillary, Obama, Edwards - while the GOP is really a two-man race - Giuliani and McCain.

Hillary's top two descriptors were related to Bill Clinton/Clinton Presidency (19%) and Miscellaneous Negative (10%). Barack Obama is seen as Inexperienced/Not Ready 12% and New/fresh 11%. John Edwards is known as a vice-presidential candidate/senator (11%) and Great, good, nice (8%).

Rudy Giuliani is known for being the mayor of New York (22%) and 9-11 (21%). John McCain is known by 13% for Military Service/POW, while 12% of the people described him in terms Issues, ideology, and political views. Mitt Romney was described by 9% of the respondents in terms of his Issues, ideology, political views and Great, good, nice (5%).

What does that tell us? Well the politicians on television are the most well known, but people don't know much about them as candidates. Hillary is best known for the Clinton Presidency? Neither Obama or Edwards have political view in their top 2?

Guiliani doesn't have ideology in his top 2 either. Wait until Republican primary voters find out he isn't socially or fiscally conservative. McCain may be the best known quantity, but he has been running for president since 2000.

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