RICHARDSON: SO SO IN THE GALLUP POLL

A new Gallup Poll asked 496 "Democrats or Democratic leaners" on whether they thought certain possible 2008 presidential candidates were "acceptable" or "not acceptable."


Click HERE to see all the results.

Coming in at a solid 8th place finish (out of 13 listed) was our Gov. Bill Richardson.

According to the poll, 36 percent found Richardson acceptable, 38 found him unacceptable and 26 percent had no opinion.

Nowhere is it explained what the polled found unacceptable about Richardson -- or any of the others mentioned.

On the bright side for the gov, he scored higher here than other governors on the list -- former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. And his "unacceptable" numbers are lower than those of Dennis Kucinich, Tom Daschle, Howard Dean, John Kerry and some of the others listed.

But no getting around it: At this stage of the game Richardson still is a dark horse, underdog or whatever animal metaphor you want to use.

There was a separate poll done for Republicans, where Rudy Giuliani is the most acceptable and Vice President Dick Cheney the most unacceptable.