There's lots of Hillary talk out there in the blogosphere, much of it occasioned by the release of a new survey that reflects staggeringly high "negatives" for Mrs. Clinton, that is, people who say they definitely would not vote for her regardless of her opponent in 2008.
In a CNN/USA Today/ Gallup poll made public yesterday, 51% of voters said they would definitely not vote for Mrs. Clinton if she chooses to run for president in 2008. In a separate nationwide poll conducted this month for a spirits company, Diageo, and a political newsletter, the Hotline, 44% of all voters and 19% of self-described Democrats said they viewed the New York senator unfavorably.
Hillary's nomination in 2008, which has seemed like a virtual lock for, oh, a couple of years now, seems less so today, even though history would suggest that the pendulum is likely to swing back to Democratic control of the White House in 2008.
Arianna Huffington writes about some of the chinks in the "Hillary's-a-lock" armor. In sum, it warns not to overestimate Clinton's strength among conservatives by looking at how she did in upstate New York, and not to assume that she is rock solid with the Democratic "base", because polls show her trailing six other candidates including "undecided". Her post is link-rich and therefore worth checking out.
The New York Sun's Josh Gerstein says Democrats are increasingly nervous about her ability to win in the general election:
"There are a lot of people who are conventional Democrats ideologically who think she can't win, and we're caught in this bind where she's unstoppable and therefore our goose is essentially cooked," a Democratic consultant and former aide to Senator Lieberman, Dan Gerstein, said.Many Democrats are reluctant to criticize the former first lady in public. Indeed, Mr. Gerstein, who is no relation to this reporter, quickly added that he does not agree with those who think Mrs. Clinton would be doomed to defeat in November. But he acknowledges that the topic is widely discussed. "I don't believe that. I don't buy it, but it's surprising how often that's being repeated," he said.
A former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, Richard Harpootlian, is among those who will own up to such misgivings. "Mrs. Clinton, because of some positions she has taken over the years, gets a visceral reaction to her here, both negative and positive. I'm afraid around the South and Midwest the visceral reaction is not good," he told The New York Sun.
Andrew Sullivan's piece in the Sunday Times notes the intentional schizophrenia in Hillary's political positioning, as she tries to oppose President Bush from his right (on Iran) and from his left (with her "plantation" rhetoric) simultaneously. She has two men in her way, says Sullivan. One is former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, who could mount a centrist challenge to her nomination on the Democratic belief that he could take a red state or two in the general election.
But she can't run away from her husband. An excerpt from Sullivan:
Yes, there’s nostalgia for the 1990s, but not that much.Which brings us to Hillary’s other problem male: her husband. It’s impossible to imagine him in the White House as a “first lady†figure, arranging state dinners and redecorating the Lincoln bedroom. Electing Hillary means re-re-electing Bill.
When Bush Jr was elected no one believed his dad would actually be running the show (although a few chastened conservatives might have appreciated some old-school moderation at the helm these past few years). Electing Hillary will be the same two-for-one deal it was in 1992 and 1996. Americans like moving forward, not backwards.
Which sounds a bit like something I wrote here back in November 2004:
anytime there's talk of Hillary running for President is the fact that, as long as she's still married, electing Hillary would be putting Bill Clinton back in the White House, and I'm not sure the majority of the American people will ever choose to let that happen. In fact, if the same elite opinion holds in 2008 as held sway in 1992, the Democrats and the media will gush about the special package deal we would get. Co-Presidents they called it back then, and Hillary assumed control over much of the domestic policy-making apparatus and had more than nominal oversight of the Justice Department, without so much as a ballot being cast for her or an appointment being made. Huge power with zero accountability. Nice work if you can get it. Sort of like Kofi Annan when you think about it. Would Americans in 2008 be eager to take advantage of the manifest intellectual gifts and incredible career experience of the President's spouse, and hand him a significant unelected, unappointed policy-making role? I'm doubting it.If Bill comes along as part of the package in 2008, I don't think it'll fly, even guessing four years out. Because I don't think most Americans will forget the perjury, the obstruction of justice, the inaction on terror, the impeachment, the sexual imposition, the illegal Chinese campaign cash, the sleazy pardons, the smearing of inconvenient women, the disbarment, or the meaning of the word "is". Without the baggage, maybe Hillary could pull it off.
UPDATE 1/26: Jonah Goldberg adds his two cents today. His L.A. Times piece concludes...
...there's a great irony here. Hillary Clinton's success over the last decade and a half has been in pretending to be her own woman while really playing one part or another for the benefit of the media, her husband or various feminist constituencies desperate for a role model to confirm all of their comfortable stereotypes.That's why there's something oddly satisfying in the possibility that Clinton being herself is politically disastrous. And, if she's really just playing one more role according to some classically Clintonian political triangulation, there's something equally satisfying to the prospect that even her fans aren't falling for it anymore.
Why are Hillary's negative poll numbers not available on the web sites of CNN or Gallup, the organizations that conducted the poll? Why did USA Today remove the whole section on 2008 hopefuls from their results? Hmmm.
Posted by dan at January 25, 2006 11:29 AM