Way too soon to take a poll like this seriously, but Public Policy Polling is out with results of a robo-dialed poll of Minnesotans' feelings toward Sen. Al Franken and some of his likely challengers. It was taken over the weekend. If you did take it seriously, it would be mostly good news for Franken, the freshman DFL senator who will be up for reelection in 2014.

By 52-41, most of those polled approved of Franken's job performance. 89 percent of DFLers expressed approval compared with 83 percent disapproval among Republicans. Perhaps the best news for the incumbent is that self-described moderates approved of his performance by a solid-looking 62-30.

When Republicans were offered a list of likely Repub nominees to challenge Franken, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann was favored by 45 percent, followed distantly by Congressman John Kline (19%), former Congressman Chip Cravaack (13%), Congressman Erik Paulsen (11%), former state Rep. Laura Brod (4%) and Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek (2%). This probably reflected Bachmann's high name recognition more than any assessment of her chances of unseating Franken. Kline and Paulsen are the most often-mentioned challengers among the politically-obsessed, but many of those polled had no opinion about them. Bachmann is seldom mentioned among the likeliest challengers and the poll finds her unpopular statewide with a decidedly upside down 35%/59% approval/disapproval rating.

And, in fact, Bachmann fared the worst of any of four Republicans PPP tested in hypothetical trial match-ups against Franken. Franken won all four match-ups, by 50-44 over former Sen. Norm Coleman (who has said he will not run for the seat in 2014) over Kline by 49/41, over Paulsen 50/39 and over Bachmann by 54/40.

PPP said Franken's success in the trial match ups was due to strong support from moderate and female voters. PPP"s writeup of the survey is here.