Poll: Voters not happy with GOP candidates

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The more Republicans get to know their potential White House candidates, the less happy they are with their choices.

It’s not that they dislike the individual candidates. They just give them a collective shrug as possible opponents for President Barack Obama. They’d like someone with a little more pizazz.

Some 45 percent now say they’re dissatisfied with the GOP candidates who have declared or are thought to be serious about running, up from 33 percent two months ago, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. Just 41 percent are satisfied with the likely Republican field, down from 52 percent.

Plenty are holding out for somebody else.

In North Carolina, retiree Robert Osborne is hoping New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will decide to run. In Indiana, farmer Brent Smith wishes Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour hadn’t backed away. In Georgia, stock clerk Susan Demarest would love to see somebody more like Ronald Reagan.

Ohio’s William Johnson just wants somebody who’s not a “cold fish.”

“I don’t expect them to get up there and start doing karaoke, but we need somebody with a little more spunk,” said the Columbus steelworker.

Though the Republican roster of candidates is growing almost by the day — Ron Paul declared on Friday, and Mike Huckabee says he’ll make an important announcement this weekend — satisfaction with the field appears to be shrinking.

Future polling could give a better idea of whether the dramatic raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, which gave a boost to Obama’s approval rating, also served to dampen enthusiasm temporarily for Republican candidates.