Posted on 02/21/2005 8:32:45 PM PST by Libloather
Clinton's Popularity Up in State, Even Among Republicans
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Published: February 22, 2005
Remember Hillary Rodham Clinton and the conventional wisdom about how polarizing a figure she is? Well, think again.
Recent polls have shown that Mrs. Clinton, the junior senator from New York, may have turned a corner politically, sharply reducing the number of voters in the state who harbor negative views of her.
Pollsters say the change is remarkable for a woman who has long been shadowed by a seemingly implacable group of voters - commonly referred to as Hillary haters - who dislike her, no matter what she does, and who pose a potential obstacle to any presidential ambitions she may harbor.
A measure of how far Senator Clinton has come was on display Sunday when Senator John McCain, Republican from Arizona, said on "Meet the Press" that he thought Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat, would make a good president, although he said that he would support his party's nominee. She returned the compliment, saying when asked by the program's host, Tim Russert, that Senator McCain would be a good president.
The changing view of Mrs. Clinton coincides with a period following the November election in which she offered a series of speeches filled with references to faith and prayer, while putting less emphasis on polarizing social issues like gay marriage and abortion.
The result of these comments has been an emerging image of Senator Clinton that is far different from the caricature that Republicans have painted of her: that of a secular liberal whose stances are largely at odds with a public that they say is concerned about the nation's moral direction.
Political analysts say the themes Senator Clinton has emphasized - combined with the hard-working image she has sought to project - appear to be causing large numbers of voters to re-evaluate her in New York, although not nationally, where the number of people who disapprove of her is still high. In a Marist poll last fall, roughly 4 in 10 Americans had negative views of her.
Her progress appealing to once skeptical New Yorkers was illuminated by a New York Times poll released last week that showed that 21 percent of New Yorkers had an unfavorable opinion of how she is handling her job, down significantly from the 29 percent of voters who expressed similar sentiments in October 2002.
(In two recent back-to-back surveys, pollsters for Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Conn., also found a notable decline in the number of New York voters who expressed a negative view of Mrs. Clinton.)
At the same time, Senator Clinton's job approval rating has increased to 69 percent from 58 percent in October 2002, according to the Times poll. That is higher even than the 63 percent approval rating of Charles E. Schumer, the senior senator from New York who was re-elected last year to a second term with a record 71 percent of the vote and who is known for his attention to upstate concerns.
The new attitudes toward Mrs. Clinton may be forcing Republicans to reconsider how to deal with an opponent they had until now viewed as an enticing target because of the depth of negative feelings she inspires among large numbers of New York voters.
Independent political analysts say her strong standing may give pause to any big-name Republican thinking about challenging her in 2006, chief among them Rudolph W. Giuliani and Gov. George E. Pataki. In fact, a Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month found that Mrs. Clinton would defeat both Mr. Pataki and Mr. Giuliani in head-to-head contests.
"There isn't a long line of opponents forming to take her on in 2006," said Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
But New York Republican leaders say that they are eager to challenge Senator Clinton, especially since Republicans from around the country will almost certainly provide plenty of money and other campaign support to defeat her, as they did in 2000.
New York Republicans also say that the senator has had a free ride so far and that her opponent in the campaign will have an easy time driving up her negative ratings - and halting her rise in the polls - by pointing out what they describe as her poor record of accomplishment and her liberal ideology.
This is why I left New York. New Yorkers think they are so smart, but twice they elected out of state liberals who were just looking for a launching pad to the White House.
Shhhhhhhh, do not tell anyone, the Republican candidate can make a similar promise too.
I'm sad to say I don't think a national Republican figure has the stones to do so
The fools.
Nah. They're just New Yorkers. That should explain what's wrong with them. :-)
It worked real well for Kerry didn't it ?
That will come back to haunt him in '08, as well it should.
Can't we just throw water on her?
If Americans are stupid enough to believe her, maybe this nation deserves her.
Anyone who believes this article needs to wake up, this is the NY Timew writing this. Half the staff is gay.
Do not make the fatal mistake that liberals often do and assume that the American people are stupid.
PS: Do not bring Bill Clinton election as counter argument since Clinton was elected in 1992 because of weakness of GHW Bush and the Perot factor, and re-elected in 1996 because the economy was good and there was no war or a national crisis.
That's not the way I see it either. The country started to get to know John Kerry, and the more it saw of him, the less it liked him. Thank God for the Swift Boat Vets were, frankly, were better than the Bush team at debunking Kerry's faux "war hero" claim.
What was he lying about? John Kerry NEVER told a lie. He was a WAR HERO with 3 purple hearts!!
/searcasm
These opinion polls have been fairly consistent, though, in placing her as state's most popular politician.
And keep in mind that about 25% of Bush voters in NY approve of her job performance. That's a scary thought to me.
Think what you want. Only two kinds of people would vote for Hillary if she ran on that issue. The Democrat base (which she has no matter what) and the Buchananites/Tancredoites who won't vote Republican no matter who is running.
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