Dear Jameison,
I'll rephrase: Because most of the potential nominees on the Republican side have had little national exposure previously, at this point, the polls for Republican candidates are little more than exercises in name recognition.
There are two Republicans who have had national exposure: Sen. McCain and Mr. Giuliani. Sen. McCain, because he ran in 2000, and Mr. Giuliani, because he was mayor of New York City on September 11. The others just haven't been on the national stage, yet. Thus, polls that show Mr. Giuliani and Sen. McCain as the most popular Republicans reflect that superior name recognition.
Although political junkies (a status for which most active members of Free Republic qualify) are already deep into the 2008 presidential race, most of the rest of the country hasn't really started paying attention to the November 2006 election, no less the 2008 election. When they and the lamestream media start to, then we'll see what happens.
I doubt that John Kerry had much name recognition in May 2002, even though he'd run for president before. I know that Howard Dean didn't have much name recognition prior to the 2004 election season, and if he hadn't shown publicly that he was mentally ill, he may well have had the nomination. I know that Bill Clinton had very little name recognition in May 1990. You might ask Gary Hart how much his name recognition helped him in 1988. ;-)
That's what the presidential nomination race does: it gives attention to folks. It's tough to guess who will emerge from the process. However, it is usually someone acceptable to all parts of a party's coalition, and if it isn't, the party usually loses the general election.
sitetest