The freshly released Diageo/Hotline poll has some interesting numbers on John McCain. The good news is that in a hypothetical '08 matchup McCain crushes Hillary 52-39 with 23% of Democrats saying they would vote for McCain. McCain also scored well when surveyed as an Independent in a 3-way race with Clinton and Jeb Bush, leading Republican analyst Ed Rollins to boast “According to these numbers, the GOP needs John McCain more than McCain needs the GOP.” Let's not get carried away just yet.

When asked "who represents what the Republican Party should stand for," Republican voters were evenly split between McCain, Condi Rice, and Rudy Giuliani. And then there's this:

In addition to the national sample, the Diageo/Hotline Poll studied an oversample of 100 registered Republicans to probe opinion on the party’s future and John McCain.  Republicans are divided on who they would support in the 2008 presidential primaries, Giuliani, Rice, or McCain, (22%, 22%, 21%, respectively).

As I mentioned some time ago, Giuliani did signifcantly better than McCain (29.5% vs 8.2% respectively) in Patrick Ruffini's last straw poll with more than 17,000 respondents (as opposed to the 700 in the Hotline poll). Furthermore, in Ruffini's "fantasy ballot" where respondents could name their first choice, Condi Rice was the decisive winner (36.7%), obliterating both Giuliani and McCain.

Condi continues to give off signs she won't run, Giuliani continues to signal he will, and McCain hasn't stopped running since 2000. While McCain's stock has definitely been on the rise of late and the current issue mix seems to be working in his favor, he's still probably the least well liked of the three among Republican primary voters. Needless to say, speculating on 2008 based on polling in November 2005 is fun but ultimately a waste of time.

UPDATE: Recent poll from Rasmussen (sample size only 310 likely GOP voters):
Giuliani 26%, Rice 24%, McCain 21%.