The Legislature is gone for the weekend, so let’s talk a little national politics:

GIULIANI, CLINTON LEAD TEXAS PRESIDENTIAL POLL

American Research Group released a presidential preference poll for Texas today. Here are the numbers for Rs and Ds:

Democrats
Biden 4%
Clark 4%
Clinton 34%
Dodd 1%
Edwards 11%
Obama 32%
Richardson 4%
Undecided 10%

I’m surprised that Richardson has so little support here. I would have expected Hispanics to get behind him. The narrowness of Hillary’s lead is surprising too.

Republicans
Brownback —
Giuliani 30%
Gingrich 11%
Hagel 1%
Huckabee 2%
Hunter —
McCain 20%
Pataki —
Paul —
Romney 13%
Tancredo 1%
F Thompson 12%
T Thompson —
Undecided 11%

Fred Thompson? How did he get on this list, and with a significant chunk of support too. Are Republicans thinking that the last actor did pretty well, so why not another one?

BUSH UP AND DOWN, BUT MOSTLY DOWN

The Web site politicalwire.com reports that President Bush’s approval record has sunk to 32%, with 63% disapproving, according to an American Research Group survey. This represents a 7 point drop compared to February. At the same time, Rasmussen’s daily tracking, using automated calling, shows Bush at 43% approval (55% disapproval), up five points in five days. Another useful Web site, realclearpolitics.com has Bush’s average approval rating in all polls at 34.3%. That seems a lot closer to the mark than Rasmussen.

Ds HOLD BIG LEAD IN PARTY SELF-IDENTIFICATION

The Pew Research Center released a nationwide survey this week showing that trends in party identification nationally favor the Democrats. In 2002, two major the parties were tied at 43%. Today, 50% of Americans identify themselves as Democrats or leaning Democrat, whereas Republicans are at 35%. This survey of 2,007 adults (age 18 and up) has a sampling error of +/- 2.5%. I don’t think the Democrats have locked in this lead, by any means. The country is not going to have a lot of tolerance for government by subpoena. I’d like to see some Texas numbers. If I had to guess, I’d say Republicans still have a narrow lead here, but the more the public sees of this group of leaders, they less they like them.

The best Web site for keeping up with the latest polls is pollingreport.com. A variety of polls contains uniformly bad news for the president and his party. For example, by a 47-33 margin, Americans believe that Congress rather than the president should be responsible for setting policy concerning the war in Iraq.

I hope somebody found this interesting. I realize that most readers regard the fate of the world is trivial compared to the next point of order in the Texas House of Representatives.