Bush-Cheney would beat any Kerry ticket – except one with Sen. John Edwards on it, according to a new poll released yesterday.
Edwards, a five-term senator from North Carolina, is the top choice among registered voters to be the Democratic vice presidential candidate, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll.
But his name on the ticket doesn’t automatically boost Democratic prospects.
In the hypothetical matchup, Kerry-Edwards had 47 percent to 44 percent for Bush-Cheney.
But if Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt was to be Kerry’s man, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would beat them 47 percent to 45 percent.
The poll found that 43 percent of Democrats would prefer Edwards over other vice presidential hopefuls from the party, while 19 percent want Gephardt and 18 percent want retired Army general Wesley Clark.
When pollsters put Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name into the mix, she scooped up one-fourth of the vote, but left Edwards at a still-strong 34 percent.
Clinton has not been offered the bid and has repeatedly said she would not accept it.
Though the numbers are promising for Edwards, analysts cautioned that it is too early in the race to predict how cohesive Kerry will be with his running mate.
“Polling information on potential running mates is soft and unreliable because it’s all about name identification and hypothetical,” said Doug Sosnik, a top adviser in the Clinton White House.
“Eventually, we’ll have a campaign when people will get to know them. Right now, it’s just mush.”
Doug Schoen, a pollster for Clinton, put it further in perspective.
“What this poll shows is that since Edwards ran a very, very competitive Democratic primary and stayed in until the bitter end and by all accounts acquitted himself well,” he said, “he is favored by Democratic and all American voters.”
The poll questioned 788 registered voters and has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
Wirh Post Wire Services