Michael's Steele's latest poll numbers are a positive surprise
Lee Atwater, a master of attack politics and onetime Republican national chairman, had this rule of thumb: Drive up your opponent's negative poll ratings high enough and you make that person unelectable.
So the following question might be particularly relevant as a severely battered Republican Party looks for someone who might be electable in 2012:
Which nationally known Republican has the lowest negatives in the latest Pew Research Center opinion survey: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Michael Steele or Mitt Romney?
The answer: Maryland's Mike.
Surprised?
Okay, what if we narrow the focus and take the temperature of Republican voters only?
Palin goes from polarizing to highly popular. Her negatives drop sharply. Only 17 percent of Republicans rate her unfavorably, compared with 44 percent of all voters.
And which of our quartet of nationally known Republicans has the lowest negatives among Republican voters?
Once again, it's the Chairman.
But wait. These are trick questions, or misleading ones at best.
Let's look at the other half of the picture, the "favorable" ratings of the same nationally known politicians.
This time, Palin comes out on top. Steele, on the other hand, winds up in last place.
And that's the catch. Steele isn't nationally known. At least not very much.
Almost two out of three people aren't familiar enough with his name to venture an opinion
A majority of Americans (51 percent) said they'd never heard of Steele. Another 12 percent said they couldn't rate him.
Even among Republicans, a clear majority (58 percent) didn't know the man or couldn't rate him one way or the other. That's a useful reality check for close followers of politics (and cable TV news) who have this crazy idea that Michael Steele is a household name.
For the record, Steele got a favorable rating from 23 percent of all adults and 28 percent of Republicans.
Among all independents, Steele has two-to-one positives to negatives (26 percent favorable to 13 percent unfavorable). And even Democrats are no worse than evenly divided (19 percent favorable to 17 percent unfavorable).
But among Republicans, Steele's positive-to-negative ratio is weaker than that of either Gingrich (55-22), Romney (57-18) or Palin (73-17). Only 10 percent of Republicans, incidentally, didn't know Palin or couldn't rate her.
Younger voters and blacks are slightly more likely to be able to identify Steele, according to Pew. And conservative Republicans view the former Maryland lieutenant governor more positively (31 percent favorable versus 14 percent unfavorable) than moderates do (23-13).
By comparison, Palin got a thumbs up from 45 percent of all Americans and 73 percent of Republicans. But Romney got the headline in Pew's analysis because his image has improved since earlier this year, and now is net positive by 12 points among voting-age Americans.
Perhaps Steele's relative anonymity is why he wants to get together with the leader of the other party at the White House. That might help raise his profile. Steele's, that is.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked at today's White House daily briefing about Steele's ambition to meet with the president. Steele wants to talk "about health care and a whole host of issues, especially since this administration has had such a wonderful Republican outreach. He wants to be one of those that the public and the President reaches out to," a reporter informed Gibbs.
Responded the Obama spokesman: "You know, I think the president has Republicans here at the White House today. I'd be interested to know what -- whether Mr. Steele believes that we can make progress working together or if the tone of his rhetoric is something that might prevent him from working constructively with the President of the United States."
