New FoxNews Poll

Citing a Fox News poll might be a bannable offense around here but there are actually some noteworthy results to some ordinary and out of the ordinary questions.

Some highlights:

- Bush's approval remains steady at 34%, just 1 point higher than his historical low of 33%, which he hit in March.

- Bush's first term average favorable/unfavorable: 61%/29%. Currently at 34%/57%, Bush is in striking distance of becoming his own inverse, the yin to his first term's yang.

- Of the top 2 candidates in each party, Barack Obama wins "Most Likeable" with 76% (least likeable is Hillary Clinton with 56%;) Rudy Giuliani wins "Strongest Leader" w/71% (lowest score was Obama w/49% but only because they didn't know, not cuz they thought he was a particularly bad leader; interestingly, Hillary ekes ahead of McCain for second place here w/60%;) and John McCain wins "Honest and Trustworthy" with 59% vs. Clinton's low score of 49%.

- As for the horserace, the only real news is the entrance of Fred Thompson, who goes from 8% to 13% after his non-announcement announcement last week. As I wrote over at Right's Field, he seems to be taking support from other candidates (Romney and Giuliani to be precise) rather than from the pool of undecideds in any real way since undecideds drop 5 points or so whether Thompson is included in the poll or not (they asked both.)

- Also, the poll was taken the night of Tuesday's debate as well as the night after so there's likely to be a debate factor in the results as well. For example, McCain drops 2 or 3 whether Thompson is out or in, respectively, which tells me McCain's eloquent defense of his immigration stance during the debate is what's at the heart of his decline.