FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – TBR chatted up David Axelrod, senior strategist for Barack Obama, during Obama’s rally here at the Crown Coliseum.

I asked him if there was any hangover from Colin Powell’s support of the invasion of Iraq, which he restated today, in the context of Powell’s endorsement of Obama.

“No, I mean, have you seen his (Powell’s) numbers?”

It struck me as a purely political answer to a question that turns on the significant strategic difference between Powell and Obama on Iraq: Powell again said today invading was the right move and that he principally regrets the failure to manage the war’s aftermath. Obama has called and continues to call the Iraq War the greatest strategic blunder in modern American history.

Then it struck me. I actually hadn’t seen any numbers on Powell. Not lately, at least.

TBR did some checking and the most recent public numbers on Powell were from 2004 (found at PollingReport.com, link here: http://www.pollingreport.com/P.htm, scroll down, Powell is near the bottom in the sequence of polls). A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll of 500 adults from Dec. 9-13, 2004 showed 40 percent of respondents viewed Powell “very positively,” while 29 percent viewed him “somewhat positively.” A Nov. 9-14 Harris Survey of 1,014 adults revealed Powell’s excellent/good rating at 66 percent, his fair/poor at 32.

Very good numbers, indeed. But not recent numbers. Obama’s campaign may have some of their own, which may have been why Axelrod said that no one who hadn’t yet endorsed Obama trumped Powell’s stature or political impact.

“Colin Powell is not viewed as a partisan figure. The importance is in the timing. At a time when Republicans are trying so hard to undermine confidence in Obama, there is no more important endorsement than Powell’s,” Axelrod said.