Rasmussen’s poll from early in January that gave Romney 29/35 fav/unfav ratings tells us a little about the composition of the people who view him unfavourably.  Among Republicans, he has decent 39/28 ratings, and among Democrats his numbers are predicatbly worse: 21/42.  Among independents and third party members (listed as “Other” under political party) the ratings are 28/35.  The 18-29 and 50-64 age groups are most likely to view him unfavourably (with 21/36 and 25/41 ratings respectively) and he does horribly with men overall: 34/44.  He doesn’t do terribly well with white voters (29/36), but for some reason black voters respond relatiely much better to him (41/33). 

He seems to have succeeded at getting just enough of a reputation as a social conservative to put off a lot of young, independent and Democratic voters while somehow managing to also alienate a lot of men and Boomers.  It’s just now the start of 2007, a third of likely voters still has yet to learn enough to know whether they like him or not, but he already has Hillaryesque unfavourables.  As of right now, he is the only one of the Terrible Trio of leading GOP candidates projected to lose to all possible Democratic nominees.  If these numbers have any meaning (which, at this point, they may not), Romney had better hope for a Vilsack nomination, since that is the only one that’s even close.