Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters say John McCain is prepared right now to be president, and 50% say the same thing about Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden. Forty-four percent (44%) say the man at the top of Biden's ticket, Barack Obama, is ready, but 45% say he isn’t.

Just 26% say McCain is not ready, and 34% feel that way about Biden, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Over half of voters (52%) say McCain’s running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is not prepared to be president, but 33% disagree (crosstabs available for Premium Members).

Among voters not affiliated with either major political party, 71% say McCain is prepared for the Presidency while just 35% say the same about Obama.

The McCain-Obama numbers track roughly with what Rasmussen Reports has been seeing for several months when voters are asked if Obama is too inexperienced to be president. However, the number who viewed Obama as too inexperienced fell to 38% immediately following the Democratic National Convention late last month.

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Ironically, while both parties are trumpeting the need for change in Washington, voters see the two longtime senators as best prepared to be president. McCain has represented Arizona in the Senate since 1987 and was in the House for two terms before that. Biden has been a senator from Delaware for 35 years. It’s truly remarkable that a sitting U.S. Senator will be elected President for the first time in nearly half-a-century at a time when just 9% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Women, by a 46% to 41% margin, think Obama is ready to be President. Men do not, 48% to 42%.

Both men and women by sizable majorities think McCain and, to a lesser degree, Biden are prepared to lead the nation. Both also believe by a roughly 20-point spread that Palin is not ready.

The older the voters are the more confidence they have in McCain’s preparedness versus Obama’s.

The good news for Democrats is in the vice presidential numbers. While 71% of Democratic voters think Biden is ready to be president, so do 26% of Republicans and 49% of unaffiliated voters. Thirty-one percent (31%) of unaffiliateds say Biden is not prepared.

By comparison, 68% of GOP voters think Palin is prepared to be president, but 82% of Democrats and a majority of unaffiliated voters (51%) say she is not. Twenty-eight percent (28%) of voters not affiliated with either major party believe Palin is ready to be president.

Voters are fairly evenly divided on which candidate they trust more. McCain has the edge in the national security area and on taxes, while Obama is favored more on economic and most other domestic matters.

McCain and Obama remain very close in both the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll and Electoral College projections.

Asked which of the four candidates they’d most like to see as President, 42% say Obama, 35% McCain, 10% Palin, and 7% Biden.

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