Reality is starting set in the presidential race. Fear, the predominant force of the Bush era is still the leading factor in who Americans will vote for in November, according to the new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll:

In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46 percent to 40 percent) and Obama by 2 points (44 percent to 42 percent). Neither lead is commanding given that the survey, conducted Feb. 21-25, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Even though most Americans want the Iraq occupation to end, they still don’t trust the party of FDR to run the military:

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have made ending America’s involvement in the war a centerpiece of their campaigns. And even though a clear majority of those polled said the war was not worth waging, about half of registered voters said McCain — a Vietnam vet who has supported the Bush administration’s military strategy — was better able to deal with Iraq.

Here’s one positive number for McCain that could be changed, if the Democrat nominee is aggressive:

The Arizona senator is viewed favorably by 61 percent of all registered voters, including a plurality of Democrats.

Driving up their opponents “unfavorables” is fundamental to the way in which the Bush campaigns of 2000 and 2004 bested Al Gore and John Kerry, respectively. But both these candidates were either reluctant to, or inept at, driving up Bush’s negatives, plentiful though they were.