Bush Leads Democratic Contenders

A Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll released yesterday shows President Bush beating all Democratic Presidential contenders by ten points or more.
What is interesting to me is how little difference it makes, at least at this stage, which Democrat Bush is matched against. He leads Lieberman 52%-41% and Dean 53%-38%, but he also leads non-candidates (at least for now) Al Gore and Hillary Clinton 53%-41% and 52%-42% respectively. This suggests that, at this point, such poll results are basically a referendum on the Bush
Administration. I still think that next year’s election will mostly be exactly that; but one hopeful way of looking at these results is that there isn’t any broad base of support for a Democrat, per se, and once Bush has a specific opponent to run against, that individual’s weaknesses will come into sharper focus.
DEACON adds: I agree that next year’s election will be a referendum on Bush and that the identity of his opponent won’t make much difference. I think, though, that Dean might run a percentage point or so behind a more “moderate” and experienced candidate, which could effect the outcome if the race is close enough. But the Quinnipiac poll probably isn’t evidence for this proposition, given the margin of error.