Hillary is a non-starter
Despite the current Democratic euphoria about the party's prospects in November's mid-term elections, there are ominous signs for the future in this interesting poll of Democrats about the 2008 Presidential election.
Among its findings: Hillary Clinton is their overwhelming favorite to emerge as their party's nominee. Thirty-eight percent say that Sen. Clinton is their first choice; Sen. John Kerry, in second place, is favored by only fourteen percent
But because they realize how polarizing a figure she is, only twelve percent believe that Hillary can win in November!
Sen. John McCain is viewed favorably by fifty-five percent of Democrats- a higher favorable rating than they give many of their own party leaders and potential candidates for the White House!
All in all, this tends to support the conclusion I reached long ago, and have expressed many times in this blog: given her high negative ratings, and the relatively small percentage of the American electorate who say that they are even willing to consider voting for her under any circumstances, Hillary Rodham Clinton is simply not a viable candidate for President of the United States.
Fear Mark Warner. Fear Evan Bayh. Fear John Edwards. Be mildly apprehensive, if you really must, about Russ Feingold. But don't fear Hillary Clinton.
In 2000, commentators spoke of "the ground glass factor-" the fact that Republicans were so determined to reclaim the White House after eight years of Bill Clinton that they would be willing to crawl to the polls on their hands and knees through ground glass if they had to in order to carry it off. Well, in 2008- after eight years of George W. Bush- the ground glass factor will be working for the Democrats. So will the vibrant and well-honed instinct for self-preservation of Democratic party professionals.
My personal prediction: Hillary will run- and will withdraw by the fourth of July in favor of another candidate (my guess at this point would be Warner, but it could be any of a handful of candidates who are either Southerners or perceived moderates or both) who will by then have established himself as the consensus candidate of the party.
We Republicans should be so lucky as to get to run against Hillary Clinton! But alas, it is not to be.
HT: Drudge
Comments
I agree that there are obstacles, though. But I don't think they're inherently matters of gender. Right now, Liddy Dole and Condy Rice are the only women I can think of in the Republican Party with sufficient stature to run (and by the way, I firmly believe that the first female President, as well as the first African-American President, and the first Hispanic-American President, "The West Wing" to the contrary. will all be Republicans). Sen. Dole is probably too old; Sen. Rice doesn't seem interested. She might have a shot if she were, though her views on abortion and other social issues would be an obstacle to her getting the nomination. Not an insurmountable obstacle, though, given her judicial philosophy generally, and her popularity due to her role in the Bush Administration among the very people most inclined to hold her view on abortion against her otherwise.
The trouble among the Democrats is that while there are plenty of women who are sufficiently prominent, they are all so far to the Left that they would make Hillary look like a uniter by comparison. I think the problem is not that the country isn't ready for a woman president, but that right now we don't have a viable candidate on the horizon who happens to be a woman.
Or, a mediacrat. Either way, it ends in 'rat'.
I will grant you that his record on abortion is a little spotty (in the sense that some of the off-the-cuff remarks he's made don't entirely square with his public position), and that some of the comments he's made on the nexus of faith and social policy are worrisome. But he's pro-life,and votes that way- even if he would make exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. While those exceptions obviously are neither logical nor morally consistent, they're also hard to argue against, given the stakes for the mother- and involve fewer than two percent of the abortions performed in this country.
The other issues which have earned him the "Democrat in Republican clothing" label in some circles aren't scary enough to make me that frightened of him. Sometimes, they involve issues on which he turned out to right. Remember, one of them was his involvement in the deal brokered by the "Gang of Fourteen-" a piece of parliamentary genius that made it politically impossible for the Democrats to fillibuster either Roberts or Alito, and could still deliver social conservatives and original intent advocagtes another seat and control of the Court.
McCain has credibility on security issues, and might well make better decisions than President Bush has on military ones. He is far more conservative than Mr. Bush fiscally. And he's the one Republican who is remotely acceptable to me who looks like a likely winner right now (Rudy is right out; he's pro-choice, and pro almost everything I'm against in the area of social policy). McCain's record, taken as a whole, isn't all that bad- though I admit that I could be happier about certain things
I don't mean to imply that I'm ready to sign on with McCain at this point, But he's frankly on my short list, though not necessarily at the top of it. Just because the media likes him doesn't make him automatically evil.
Mitt Romney is a possibility. George Allen is great, but I don't think he'd
even carry Virginia against Mark Warner, and he just doesn't impress me at this point as that compelling a candidate. I'm very far from ruling him out, though- and he's the guy I expect will actually get the nomination.
I'm not crazy about Bill Frist, though I'd certainly vote for him. Chuck Hagel is out; he's been wrong too often on too many issues. From what I know of Mike Huckabee, I like him, though I need to get to know more about him. There are aspects to his notions about church/state issues which I need to be reassured about for the opposite reasons I need reassurance about McCain.
I'm antsy about Condi's abortion position, but unlike Rudy I might be able to vote for her even though she's pro-choice, because her judicial philosophy is such that anybody she'd nominate to the Court would be likely to disagree with her about abortion. Not sure she'd win, though; she'd make a far better president than a candidate. If it weren't for his last name, of course, Jeb Bush would be the obvious choice, and I fully expect to vote for him some day, but it won't be in 2008. No way he's going to run, especially since I think he knows that America isnt going to be falling all over itself to elect another guy named Bush next time out.
Who knows? Maybe somebody unknown will come out of right field. Whoever it is, though, will have to differ from President Bush in some key respects. Without going into detail, the invasion of Iraq- which I see as both justified and inevitable- was handled about as badly as it could have been. We should have anticipated the power vacuum; we should have anticipated that al Quaeda would jump into the middle of it. We should have had more boots on the ground, and come down on that country so hard that we would have had a reasonable chance to simply quash any troublemaking. And the timing was bad...
Well, I said I'm not going to get into details. But whoever succeeds Dubyah is going to have to have credentials that make him likely to do a better job of utilizing American power than he has. We have Iran and North Korea and a whole bunch of other stuff to worry about, to say nothing of al Quaeda and Afghanistan. And I watch the degree to which President Bush is cozying up to our number one opponent in the world for the next generation- China- with a combination of sorrow and disgust.
McCain- say what you want about the man- has the credentials to be a commander-in-chief. Again, I'm not saying that I'm on board with him. But he has enough of the qualities the next president is going to have to have that he has to be given serious consideration.
In fact, the only two possibilities who come to mind who can say the same, though for different reasons, are Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani- and I couldn't vote for either one because of the abortion issue. I could swallow Powell far more easily than Giulaini, though- and McCain much, much more easily than either.
However bizarre his statements on abortion may have been at times, the fact remains that he's pro-life, and has voted that way. And he's going to have to move to the Right to win the nomination.
As the candidates wander through my metaphorical living room here in Des Moines in the months leading up to the Iowa Caucuses, count on it: I'll be giving them all a careful looking over. Whatever I do at the Precinct Caucuses next winter, I'm not going to do lightly.