Hillary Clinton is lengthening her lead in the national polls. She's in front of Obama by 20% in the most recent Cook/RT Strategies poll and the RealClearPolitics polling average. What's impressive from the Hillary perspective is that her support has increased into the 40% range while Obama has been holding steady from 22-26%. Instead of being "the least bad choice," Hillary is winning support on her own. Why is that the case? Once again, it's what Hillary is doing that seems to be increasing her support. Her debate performances, her work on the campaign trail, and the general discipline and professionalism of her campaign staff have all been impressive. Hillary's performance to date has been especially noteworthy because the mainstream media and the conservative blogs intensely scrutinize everything she does for blunders and gaffes. It's just that they're not finding much.
Contrary to Hillary's campaign team, I don't believe that people are "locking in" their support for Hillary yet. But she's a front-runner who is performing at a high level while under intense scrutiny. If Obama or Edwards want to beat Hillary, they're going to have to show that they're much better candidates than her.
That's a pretty high hurdle.
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Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will win the Democratic nomination and the Presidency. Why? She is smart, she is politically savvy, and she most definitely is a leader. Hillary is the first credible woman Presidential candidate in American history (Shirley Chisholm and Libby Dole were never credible). That means a lot to female Independents, who may harbor misgivings about Hillary politically will vote their gender. Hillary is a known entity. Americans have grown accustomed to her. Who will vote for her? Union members. Union leaders will support her with funding and manpower. Hillary will draw a large block of support from women. There will, of course be women who won't vote for her. Some don't like her because she did not end her marriage in the wake of the Lewinsky affair. However, mainstream women will be there for her. African-Americans will vote for her in the same large numbers as is normally the case when there is a Democrat running for any office. She is good at attracting cross-over votes. Both her U.S. Senate races in NY are perfect examples of her political capabilities. Both times, she won over a large number of republican votes in the state. Plus she won a lot of conservative areas of NYC. Hillary is different. Her gender and her name makes her an outsider as well as an insider candidate. In a way she has some of the same charisma that attaches to both George W Bush and Bill Clinton. Both began as centrist party insiders, seen by those further to the left or right within their parties as electable, and both were elected as this. But both then became heroes to their respective bases. She's doing all the right things, going to all the right states, she is beloved in the party from the grass roots to K Street. No one in either the Democratic field nor the Republican field can beat her. She is waging a smart, tough campaign. She has been to hell and back on so many things that no road she will ever travel will seem hot. She is thick-skinned enough to face what any Democrat would face, a divided country in need of a leader, not just someone who expects others to follow. Hilary's power as a presidential candidate is overwhelming. Her star appeal among Democrats, combined with her ability to raise money will eventually dwarf the other candidates. She is the most experienced and qualified of all leading presidential candidates domestically and internationally, Democrats or Republicans. Her experience in the Senate and White House,combat-ready strength, discipline, and political savvy. She has an established campaign organization better than any of her opponents in either party. What tips things even more fully in her favor is that she has a spouse who is loved and revered here at home and around the world. President Bill Clinton has been the only Democratic candidate who has consistently bumfuzzled the Meese-Atwater-Rove Republican Southern Strategy Attack Machine. Republicans will succeed in getting their insane to cast hate votes against her, but the GOP will characteristically fail to understand that their baseless ad hominem attacks are so transparently mean they will cost whoever is the Republican candidate crucial numbers of swing votes. Because Hillary will be so thoroughly demonized she must only seem somewhat less demonic to attract votes from the center. Hillary’s Iraq position is nearly identical to the nuanced position that cost John Kerry the 2004 general election. The truth is, Kerry’s nuanced position was the correct position. It simultaneously affirmed that Saddam was a bad guy, that the President had the theoretical power to overthrow bad guys, and that the President needed genuine and full Congressional and international cooperation before doing so. Hillary has the good sense to stick by her original position. The reason her position will play, while Kerry’s did not, is that the country has changed since 2004. While a majority of Americans says they want U.S. soldiers home, in practice they want an orderly and effective homecoming. And only Hillary Rodham Clinton, of all the Democratic contenders, embraces what Americans deep down desire. They do not want a war where thousands of lives are lost for no enduring rationale, yet they do not want an exit where we appear to cut-and-run. At least that is the impression I get. But let’s not get mired in the depressing realism of the Iraqi quagmire.
So, there you have it:
She has a lot of strength in the black community.
She will raise insane amounts of money.
She has nowhere to go but up.Every nasty thing that can possibly be said about her has already been said. Rush Limbaugh will spew his usual swill to the right-wing zombies, but for the most part all the old attacks will seem stale and outdated.
I could go on but I am very tired. So I will end where I began,
Unfortunately Todd, so much of what you said is right.
The Clinton's are brilliant politicians(not a compliment, just a statement of fact). My biggest objections are to at least 4 more years of BJ tales, and being constantly reminded she's a woman and president. I don't at all mind a woman president, I just find it sort of classless to keep pointing it out(which she hasn't yet, but I expect it to happen, hope I'm wrong).
Bill Clinton was one of, if not the single greatest politician of my lifetime. I did not like him then, and do not like him now, but damn, he was good at delivering his message. Leadership - not so much.
JD
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