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Opinion: Identity lacking among GOP candidates

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Results from Florida this evening will likely bring some clarity to the Republican presidential race. And perhaps not a moment too soon, given results from several questions in the recent nationwide L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll that highlighted how the candidates generally had failed to establish a strong, clear persona among the GOP electorate.

The survey questions asked Republican-inclined voters to single out -- regardless of whom they favored for the party’s nomination -- the White House contender they thought would perform best on specific issues.

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The issues: Social concerns (such as abortion and gay rights), achieving ‘change’ in Washington, the economy, tax policy, foreign policy and illegal immigration.

The findings: Only on one front -- foreign policy -- was any candidate named by more than roughly a quarter of those polled.

John McCain easily led, with 39%, as the candidate with the greatest capabilities in foreign policy. ‘Not sure’ ranked second with 16% -- a finding that underscored the apparent failure of Rudy Giuliani’s message to resonate. He offered himself as the candidate best able to combat terrorism, yet only ...

10% ranked him first on the foreign policy question.

The numbers for the ‘change’ question perhaps best illustrates the scattered views among GOP voters.

McCain tied with ‘not sure’ for the lead in this category at 18%. Mitt Romney was next, with 13%, followed closely with 12% by Fred Thompson (who was still in the race when the poll was conducted) and ‘none of the above.’ Giuliani scored 11% on the question, Mike Huckabee 10%.

The error margin for these questions was plus-or-minus 5 percentage points, meaning that, at heart, the findings for the ‘change’ question were simply a big jumble.

Much like the overall race has been.

-- Don Frederick

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