Not true. I actually have a stack of polls from the race in front of me, and they all had Clinton at or over 50%, with Lazio in the low 40s. She was always ahead, but definitively so from early September on. Lazio caught up briefly with her over the summer, when he was still in the honeymoon phase with voters, until Hillary actually started campaigning. For a brief period, Lazio was polling against her much better than Rudy had been.
The final Gallup poll was 48-46...over the summer Rudy and Hillary were in a toss up...Hillary was rarely if ever over 50%
All of that is besidees the point...even lets say Rusy would have lost in NY to Hillary by 5, how would that translate nationally??? No one thinks Rudy beats Hillary in NY for Prez, but he would probably pick up ME, NH, CT, NJ...Even if you take Lazio's 46% and translate it nationally, even Lazio beats Hillary