Posted on 07/19/2010 2:40:27 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
With Democrats headed for a man-made disaster in November and the Obama presidency increasingly looking like a quagmired domestic-contingency operation, speculation about Hillary Clinton running for president in 2012 is on the rise. We know Secretary Clinton has a strong desire to be the president, but will she step down as Secretary of State and challenge Barack Obama, the first African-American president and a fellow Democrat? And if she won her party’s nomination what are her prospects for winning the general election?
The conventional wisdom is that if President Obama begins governing more from the center after losses in the 2010 elections and gets his approval rating up around 50 percent, Secretary Clinton is unlikely to challenge him. If Obama’s approval ratings continue to tank, and he looks more like Jimmy Carter than Bill Clinton, there is a good chance Clinton will challenge Obama as Ted Kennedy challenged an unpopular Carter in 1980. Kennedy, of course, failed to capture the nomination because Chappaquiddick and other issues got in the way; and Clinton is by no means a shoo-in for the nomination in 2012 regardless of Obama’s poll numbers.
Let’s assume, however, for the sake of argument, that Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination in 2012—without the majority of African-American voters that are unlikely to abandon Obama. Could she assemble a winning coalition in November, and who would be the most difficult Republican to defeat?
Assembling a winning coalition following a divisive intra-party struggle in an environment where the majority of Americans are dissatisfied with the way Democrats have been governing won’t be easy. Many disaffected Democrats, especially African Americans, are likely to stay home on Election Day. Many Independents who voted for Obama in 2008, suffered buyers remorse, and believe the country has shifted too far to the left are likely to vote Republican.
Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton would give any Republican a run for their money and indeed could win the 2012 election under the right circumstances. She’s an experienced campaigner, she has a deep reservoir of talented Democratic political operatives she can call on, and she knows every trick in the Democrats’ playbook.
Much, then, will depend on which Republican Clinton is up against. Right now the top four prospects for the Republican nomination are Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin. A recent poll by Public Policy Polling matched them up against Barack Obama in a 2012 race. “He trails Mitt Romney 46-43, Mike Huckabee 47-45, Newt Gingrich 46-45, and is even tied with Sarah Palin at 46 . . .”
What’s noteworthy about this poll is not that three out of four Republicans beat Obama in these hypothetical matchups, but that Sarah Palin tied him. It’s Palin that Democrats and some Republicans have written off as the least likely Republican to win the 2012 election. The results of this and other polls belie that. Increasingly, she’s looking more like a viable candidate. As I wrote back in February, Sarah Palin’s presidential prospects are not as bad as some would lead you to believe—a judgment others now are coming to.
So how would these four Republicans stack up against Hillary Clinton? Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until someone runs a poll to find out. It’s the matchup between Clinton and Palin, however, which would be the most interesting. Not only would we have two women vying to become the first female President of the United States, making it a foregone conclusion, but, contrary to what many pundits believe, it’s Palin that could be the most difficult for Clinton to defeat.
Clinton’s strategy—or Obama’s for that matter—running against Romney, Gingrich, or Huckabee is to portray them as the same old white-male establishment Republicans the party has been offering up for decades, that they represent the past, not the future, and the failed policies of the George W. Bush administration. In 2008 Obama used that approach effectively against John McCain, and Clinton can use it effectively against them.
Women voters will play an important role in the 2012 with or without a woman on the ballot. Concerns about the economy, health care reform, and other pocketbook issues have them very concerned. More so than in past years, it is women that could cast the deciding votes.
Because the majority of women traditionally vote Democratic, that gives Hillary the advantage with women if she’s running against a middle-aged white-male Republican. If Sarah Palin topped the Republican ticket, however, that calculus doesn’t necessarily hold. The ranks of conservative women are growing, they make up a majority of Tea Party supporters, and many Independent and some Democratic women are drawn to Palin.
Past polling on women’s attitudes toward Clinton or Palin doesn’t necessarily predict how they might vote in 2012 if these two women were on the ballot. Voters won’t view Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin through the same lenses they viewed them through in 2008. Liberalism’s excesses and failures during Obama’s term will have diminished the value of the liberal “Hillary” brand, and the left’s attempt to portray Sarah Palin as dumb and uninformed will have been exposed, as it largely has been already, for what it is—fear of Palin’s appeal.
2012 is still geological ages away in political terms as the cliché goes, but the possibility of a Clinton-Palin contest is not far fetched. Both women are major political forces in their respective parties, and both have their eyes on the Oval Office. Stranger things have happened in American politics.
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Ed Ross is the President and Chief Executive Officer of EWRoss International LLC, a company that provides global consulting services to clients in the international defense marketplace. He publishes commentary at EWRoss.com.
Which historians did you have in mind.
Another useless 'Palin is great BUT' post.
Would it do what? You don't get it, do you. A Romney/God ticket would suck.
Indeed. The ‘she’s to polarizing’ debate doean’t hold sway with me. As if. And Hillary isn’t polarizing? Obama?
Hillary would have to bring a lot of CHinese yen to build that war chest. She spent it all and was in hock after the last election. And without many of her former ‘bundlers’ gone (they’re in jail) where else would the money come from? Soros?
Palin has an Achilles’ heel. It has a name: Bristol. If she and her husband-to-be Levi manage to have their own reality show, there is no doubt that the producers will try to squeeze all juicy stories out of them. Whether those stories are true or not will not matter.
Bristol Palin: I’m Not Doing a Reality Show
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebritynews/news/bristol-palin-levi-johnston-were-not-doing-a-reality-show-2010197
Heck, why not replay 2008's McCain/Palin or Jeb Bush/Palin?
Give her some time. I don’t really trust a daughter who is willing to get engaged with a man who had trashed her own family in public.
Aren’t Bristol and Levi adults? Did Billy Carter, Roger Clinton, Ronnie “Pink Tights” Reagan, Neil Bush or the Obama tribe in Kenya keep those men from being elected president? Or does everyone feel that a female candidate should be held to a different standard for some reason?
Right answer.
I think you have boiled down the dilemma into one sentence. What I fear is that the Left will make use of this division through manipulation and instigation. I want to see Palin on top of the ticket and Romney as a supporter; not even second on the ticket; and not a sabotager or used to get his supporters opposed to her. I looks like a real complicated situation to make it work.
Did any of them say bad things to Carter, Clinton, Reagan, Bush, or 0bama before or during the campaign? I’m just pointing out what I think will be her Achilles heel. Don’t get me wrong. I like Palin, but I think it will be difficult for her to win when her son in-law starts to trash her again by throwing false accusations. In the environment where the MSM are happy to carry any negative information on Palin, at least her campaign will be busy dealing with those accusations.
Bingo!
I don’t disagree with what you are saying about the RNC and Sarah, but she is a great fundraiser and that is a primary responsibility of leadership. She could drain the South of all its cash by dinner time. RINO’s hopefully will fade, but meanwhile she would be no pushover for their agendas, and she would press hard for conservative candidates to recruit nationally and back financially. The broad political stage that RNC leadership offers would be invaluable for strengthening her even beyond her present base. You are right also that she is a player right where she is and no one I know disagrees with her themes, or her remarks on current events.
I should have said “students of history”, or self appointed historians. Here’s who I had in mind;like Perky Katy Couric, or even the fishwife Hillary. If Katy shattered Sarah’s chances to be broadly considered as presidential material, think what someone like a Hillary would do to her. Seriously, a sound bite or platitude wouldn’t suffice among the broader electorate, as in a debate war, and even Sarah seems to respect her own boundaries. She has not even attempted to circulate outside of the choir loft and until she does, she isn’t running for president, yet. She still has plenty of time left before she has to get back out there and mix it up on the field. Until then, she remains unproven. After she overcomes a jackal or two, I’ll be on board, but one can be right and still lose. No one is interested in Romney, btw. But for the depression we’re in, he wouldn’t get the attention he’s racking up right now. It just happens that finance was his best suit.
I guess the point is, I just don’t agree with you. I don’t know why Sarah did those early interviews where she was trashed, and you’re right, she didn’t handle them well. I think were she to do the dame interviews today it would an entirely different story.
>P>And I am tired of the “Sarah is great “BUT” posts.
Palin vs. Clinton would be epic. It would just be fun to watch.
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