Some Revealing Polling From UT

Via the Statesman's excellent Postcards from the Lege blog, there's a new poll due to be released tomorrow from the University of Texas' Politics Project and Department of Government that takes the pulse of 550 registered Texas voters from mid-October on a couple of races and couple of interesting topics.

51%: Those who will vote for Senator John McCain for President

45%: Those who will vote to re-elect Senator John Cornyn for U.S. Senate

40%: Those who will vote for Senator Barack Obama for President

38%: Those who feel the media have been "extremely unfair" to Governor Sarah Palin

36%: Those who will vote for State Representative Rick Noriega for U.S. Senate

34%: President George W. Bush's approval rating

23%: Those who think Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim

8%: Congress' approval rating

I don't see any big shockers here except the Palin question and the Obama religion question. I suppose the Palin question reflects whether or not simply being a Republican is enough for some voters to excuse you from scrutiny. Sarah Palin was not vetted by the Republican National Committee nor the McCain campaign, and there are a lot of legitimate questions about her that predate her summer fame. Mayor Palin was wallowing in Congressional pork years before she became a maverick reformer opposed to it. And Governor Palin was abusing her power as Alaska's chief executive by pressuring her subordinates to dismiss her former brother-in-law long before she re-fashioned herself as a candidate who would change the way government does business.

On the question of Senator Obama's religion, there's only one word to describe the idea that nearly 1 in 4 Texans thinks he is a Muslim: disgraceful. Contrast this to the prior question about Governor Palin's treatment by the media: I can understand how a Republican could look at Governor Palin's being asked lots of tough yet obvious questions and see it as "extremely unfair". I think that asking legitimate questions is fair, no matter how many there are. But there is no basis in reality for pushing the idea that Senator Obama is a Muslim. Thinking that Palin was being treated unfairly is at least arguable; thinking Obama is Muslim is ignorant and disgraceful.