Nate Silver has some really interesting numbers from a Rasmussen poll that must be spanking new. And I admit that they prove my instincts wrong.
As I've written a couple of times, I thought one point in Evan Bayh's favor was that Bayh would have more appeal to independent voters. The Rasmussen numbers that Silver has say nyet. Among indies, Biden has a 42-29 favorable to unfavorable, while Bayh is at 31-21. So Biden has higher positives and negatives, but a 42% positive is a good 10 points better than I'd have guessed and it's a pretty high number in the scheme of things.
By the way, Hillary's numbers among indies in this poll were 39 to 57, good to bad. Far and away the highest unfavorables among the six potential veeps Rasmussen polled. None of the other five were even above 30% unfavorable. This was always the concern about her, not only as veep but as the candidate. That and Bill. Obama is a bit of a risk for the obvious reasons, but I still think what I thought long, long ago: Obama is on balance more electable. And Biden apparently has the potential to help among a group where I'd thought he might not be able to.
