By John Brummett

There was another poll last week of the U.S. Senate race in Arkansas. It showed that Blanche Lincoln remains in a perilous decline and currently couldn’t beat even Kim Hendren of the infamous “that Jew” faux pas.

Nor could she best somebody named Tom Cox, who apparently got up at one of those T.E.A. Parties and proclaimed his Republican candidacy to replace her.

These numbers stand as testament to three things, at least.

One is that there is a strong anti-Barack Obama sentiment in Arkansas, most pronounced on health care, and it drags down Lincoln by her Democratic association. Another is that Blanche’s mad drive to the center and her new Agriculture Committee chairmanship produce no dividends as yet. The other is that people can’t possibly know what in the world they’re doing when they get called by one of these robotic pollsters and start punching numbers on their phones.

This is all about a Rasmussen Reports poll from Monday. Automated calls produced these findings:

—Four widely unknown Republican hopefuls would outdo Lincoln, paced by state Sen. Gilbert Baker’s 47-39 lead; Hendren’s of 44-41; Cox’s of 43-40, and Curtis Coleman’s of 43-41. Coleman is the guy who suggested one might need shots before visiting eastern Arkansas.

—Lincoln is viewed very favorably by 26 percent and very unfavorably by 28 percent and altogether mushily or not at all by everybody else.

—Sixty-seven percent don’t like Democratic health reform bills. They think they will explode the deficit and reduce the quality of care.

—These four Republicans thrown into the poll are in single digits, predictably, in the categories of whether they are viewed very favorably or very unfavorably. But they get up to 60 percent or so on general name identification if we are to believe the numbers on those who assert in this poll that they view these nondescript Republicans somewhat favorably or somewhat unfavorably. That assumes they know enough about them to maintain an opinion at all, you see.

That last finding is pure nuts. There is absolutely no way that nearly two-thirds of Arkansas voters know Baker, Hendren, Coleman or Cox.

National pundits noticed that last week, and, in fact, they’d noticed similarly inflated numbers for name identification of unknown candidates in other states in Rasmussen polls.

Mark Blumenthal of the National Journal’s Pollster.com seemed to have gotten to the bottom of it last week.

He explained that Rasmussen asks the horse race questions before asking for the favorable vs. unfavorable in how the candidates are viewed.

In other words, a respondent hears of the previously unknown Republican moments before being asked for an opinion of that unknown Republican.

Then Rasmussen’s telephone robot directs respondents to punch a button to indicate whether they are very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, very unfavorable or not sure about the persons who were identified to them just seconds prior as opponents of a Democratic senator at whom — in Lincoln’s case — many of them they are mad.

Blumenthal figures that the juxtaposition causes people to choose one of the nebulous “somewhat” options, since they have just learned that the person they’re being asked to rate is running for Lincoln’s seat.

Anyway, as Blumenthal says, “never heard of him until a minute ago” is not one of the robot’s options.

So can we dismiss this poll altogether?

Oh, no. It’s a snapshot and even a blurry, out-of-focus snapshot shows something.

What it shows is that Lincoln has big trouble against herself and her party and her president, mostly over health care. It shows that she trails potential opponents who are vague quantities in their own right.

That means the dynamic could change altogether once she begins to spend her ample campaign resources to remind people of her positive attributes and inform them of the foibles, sometimes glaring, in those heretofore phantom alternatives.

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John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.