Iiiinteresting. Another week, a second poll suggesting that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s general approval rating is indeed taking a hit amidst the furor over the investigation into the Benghazi scandal. Allahpundit broke down the Quinippiac poll last week in which Clinton’s approval rating came in at 52 percent — a full 9-point drop since February — and a new Bloomberg poll out today takes her down a 12-point peg from her score in December. I must say, you gotta’ love the Bloomberg lead-in:

Hillary Clinton hasn’t decided whether she’ll run for president in 2016, a status that doesn’t matter to the brewing class of potential Republican candidates already running against her.

And, in the pre-campaign posturing, her prospective opponents are having some impact. Clinton’s political standing is declining after months of criticism for her handling of a terrorist attack last September that left four Americans dead in Libya, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.

The former U.S. secretary of state’s favorability rating of 58 percent dropped 12 percentage points since December, when she recorded her top score in the survey at 70 percent. The proportion of Americans who say they view her very unfavorably has also doubled during that period, to 22 percent from 11 percent. …

“Pre-campaign posturing”? I might actually call it “investigating the worse-and-worse fallout from a major security failure, the way in which it was spectacularly mishandled by high-level administration officials, and the subsequent lack of any real accountability,” and funnily enough, it seems like the American people would probably agree. Bloomberg’s poll reveals that almost half of Americans disapprove of Clinton’s handling of Benghazi:

A plurality of those in the poll — 47 percent — said they disapprove of how Clinton handled the situation in Benghazi, while roughly a third — 34 percent — said they approve. About 1 in 5 said they aren’t sure.

And as Guy pointed out at Townhall today, a NYT/CBS poll this week reported that 53 percent of Americans think the Obama administration is “mostly hiding something,” with only 34 percent convinced that they are “mostly telling the truth.”

Anyhow, as Allahpundit posited, her declining favorability rating might have less to do with Benghazi specifically and more to do with her rather negative reemergence in the everyday of political drama; but lest we forget, her favorability and familiarity ratings are still a cut above the included Republican candidates nationally, and her closest contender is still Chris Christie. And… scene.

Among potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates tested, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was the only one who posted numbers close to Clinton’s. He’s viewed favorably by 50 percent of Americans and unfavorably by 16 percent. …

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is viewed favorably by 32 percent, not much above the 27 percent who view him unfavorably. Forty-one percent have no opinion of him. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has a net favorable rating of 32 percent and an unfavorable rating of 22 percent, with 46 percent unsure about how they view him.