Half the country hate her, but she's still on track

The Sunday Times ^ | May 14, 2006 | Andrew Sullivan

[ncountylee]

There is a rapidly congealing consensus about Hillary Clinton among Democrats. The first is that it’s hard to see how she can be stopped from becoming the party’s nominee for president in 2008. The second is that nobody really wants her to be the nominee. If this sounds familiar, it is. The Democrats had exactly the same feelings about their last two nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry. They both lost, of course, although there will always be an asterisk next to the name Gore on that one.

Most Democrats I know also fear that, at an unusually propitious time for their party, Hillary could lose the White House for them again as well. In almost every straw poll she loses big to potential rivals such as John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. About a third of the country already strongly disapproves of her. Unlike McCain and Giuliani, her unfavourable ratings actually beat out her favourable ones. And that’s after five years of very careful and very good PR.

The inevitability argument for Hillary is a strong one. In some ways she is now following George W Bush’s tack in 2000. She has amassed way more money than any of her rivals — more than $40m at the last count — and has a nepotistic connection to the last president in her own party. Her name recognition is through the roof. She lives in that rare pantheon of women whose global reach overwhelms the need for any surname: Diana, Oprah, Madonna, Condi, Hillary. In the latest polls of Democrats, Hillary is favoured by 38% of potential primary voters. Kerry is second with 14%.

Chuck Todd, editor of Washington’s Hotline put her position thus: “Frankly, to call her an 800lb gorilla would be underselling her.”

[Conservative til I die]

McCain is not a "retooled RAT". Like him or not he has a lifetime ACU rating of 83.

[Conservative til I die]

She's not much of a speaker. Have you noticed that?

And that's why, as the old adage goes (sorta), we actually hold the elections and run the campaigns, rather than just speculate on them.