Posted on 07/02/2006 10:07:42 AM PDT by wagglebee
It used to be accepted political wisdom that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had a lock on the 2008 Democratic nomination.
But support for Hillary by left-wing activists in the party has all but eroded.
In apparent effort to win back the McGovern wing of the party, James Carville is out with a new column in the Washington Post.
Co-authored with Democratic pollster Mark J. Penn, Carville has penned "The Power of Hillary.”
In their article, the top Democratic strategists claim "We don't know whether Hillary will run" -- but quckly add: "But we do know that if she runs, she can win."
Carville had served as the chief strategist in Bill Clinton's 1992 and 1996 campaigns and Penn a key strategist in both the 1996 campaign and Hillary's 2000 Senate campaign.
The duo argues that despite Hillary’s high negatives, she can still win the White House in 2008.
They also note the same negativism permeated the air when Hillary ran for Senate in 2000.
"Just give someone else a chance, so we in the Democratic Party can elect a Democrat, "and "She cannot possibly win," we two mantras heard six years ago "when many pundits -- and Democrats -- said there was no way that Hillary could get elected to the Senate. She won by 12 percentage points."
If Hillary does run for president just two years from now, the two argue, "she can win that race, too."
Despite being labeled as one of the most divisive individuals in U.S. politics, and a sure loser because of her high negatives among voters, Hillary has a lot going for her, Carville and Penn insist.
They cite these reasons:
Discounting her 42 percent negative rating, they argue that so do other nationally known Democrats. "All the nationally known Democrats would likely wind up with high negative ratings, too," they say "once they'd been through the Republican attack machine.
Hillary, they say, can win back the "swing voters," including women, won by President Bush in 2004.
"Certainly she could win the states John Kerry did," they predict. The "pathbreaking possibility of this country's first female president" could create "an explosion of women voting Democratic. States that were close in the past, from Arkansas to Colorado to Florida to Ohio, could well move to the Democratic column." After all, they write, one more state added to those won by Kerry would mean a Democrat victory.
Hillary, Carville and Penn argue, "represents the kind of change the country is yearning for: a smart, strong leader" who "would take the country in a fundamentally different direction: Closing deficits, not widening them; expanding health care coverage, not shrinking it. Fighting terrorism without isolating us from the rest of the world."
Hitlery will simply resort to Arkancide.
She has never faced the the press in an open environment.. she will have to eventually get out of those airconditioned controlled rooms with the lined up questions.
Let 'em go on believing that!
She ran in New York. Would she have won by 12 points in Texas?
There was a rumor going around a few weeks ago that one of Hillary's office staffers was taking orders for sandwiches because everyone was working through the lunch hour.
Four hours later, and after running it by her advisors and using a pollster to run a focus group first, Hillary decided she'd have the tuna fish on whole wheat.
Oh come on!
You mean you don't believe every word Mr. "Skull Face" utters?....that wonderful political forecaster?
You doubt his credulity?
Her heinous will never be faced with tough questions from the media. Her secret service detail kept the NY media far away from her so called 'listening tour'.
Hillary has strong convictions not to have any convictions at all. (I don't mean the criminal kind, but the statement applies there, too.) Hillary's strongest conviction is to straddle every issue of import so (she thinks) she won't get in any trouble later.
This is all crafted to keep H! from being the front runner until it's time. Not too many non-incumbent frontrunners at this point survive to get the nomination much less the office. On the otherhand, they have to keep her on the shortlist "should she decide to run".
Even the rodents run from the building when she gets going.
Only if we let it happen
Liberals and Democrats are so cute when they talk about winning. Then the REAL polls take place and the Silent Majority says, "no way" to those America hating freaks!
A major problem for her is speaking. She is very loud, shrill, and condescending when she speaks to a large audience.
That alone will doom her chances, IMO.
She's not anywhere near as smart as they have made her out to be. She's a foul mouthed woman too and maybe they can catch her on camera during one of her "cussings". Hillary was known to routinely tell the secret Service to "F off" so let's see if she is nicer to them if she runs.
Hillary won't ever be president. American voters can be stupid but not THAT stupid.
John Kerry in 2004 believed that with 90 percent of the news media backing him all he had to do was not appear stupid. Of course not acting stupid was impossible for Kerry. On the convention stage in Boston he gave a Vaudevillian military salute and said; ". . . reporting as ordered." This was followed by staged 8-millimeter film snips of the "hero" in Vietnam. Even though the press did everything to suppress the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth they finally got their message out via a book on Kerry's very short, very controversial tour in Vietnam. And Kerry's past is almost pristine compared to Hillary Clinton's. Not only is there hundreds of scandals and anecdotes that reveal her dark side, there are new rocks to turn over. Her unfavorable ratings are too high.
And the Houston Texans are going to win the Super Bowl this coming season.
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