Hillary: The Democratic Gift to Republicans?

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By Bill | November 29, 2007 | Email This Post

Last Sunday, Senator Clinton told the public that she’s the candidate with the best chance to beat the eventual Republican nominee. However, the very next day, a poll of nearly 10,000 people was released showing that Clinton trails Giuliani, Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain, and even dark horse Mike Huckabee by three to five points when matched up head-to-head against any of them. So much for Clinton’s assurances.

Now, my own analysis is that this particular poll includes significant bias - it was limited to people who had registered to take part in a variety of Internet-style polls, so is nothing like a random sample and probably can’t be assumed to be an accurate representation of the country at large - but it’s still illustrative of the problem that comes up over and over with Hillary Clinton: People don’t like her. I suspect, but can’t prove, that even many of Clinton’s supporters spend some part of their time talking themselves into liking her. I keep trying to do it myself because honestly, Hillary has some admirable qualities; I keep pulling for those to outshine the negative ones.

An audience member (and let the record show, a female audience member) at a John McCain appearance put it more succinctly: “How do we beat The Bitch?”

Now, it’s unfair (despite being wonderfully tempting) to dismiss Clinton with insulting labels; the fact is, whatever else Hillary may be, she’s also a smart, eminently capable politician who proved in her New York senate race that she can flat-out win a race. But if, as Clinton says, “They’ve been after me for 15 years, and much to their dismay, I’m still standing,” then why does this keep coming up? Perhaps she hasn’t done as good a job at deflecting criticism as she wants us to believe. Or maybe, being unable to effectively remake her image, she’s choosing just to pretend that the charges aren’t having an effect in hopes the rest of us will similarly ignore them.

Given the political climate, one would think that the 2008 election ought to be a cakewalk for Democrats. However, I’m starting to get the suspicion that they can lose if they nominate Hillary and allow the Republicans to tap into the enormous wellspring of distrust surrounding her. It wouldn’t be an automatic loss by any stretch of the imagination - Clinton can certainly win, but by offering her to the public Democrats would turn what ought to be a formality into an actual contest.

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