But one factor warms me to her: The New York poll numbers.
Sen. Hillary Clinton leads the Republican front-runner, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani 52 - 41 percent in the 2008 New York State presidential sweepstakes, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
Giuliani ties Obama 45 - 45 percent, and gets 45 percent to Edwards' 44 percent;It's a hard fact, an infuriating fact, and yet...a fact. Dems cannot win without New York. Giuliani puts New York in play. Clinton can beat Giuliani in that state handily; Obama and Edwards cannot.
Not only that. Giuliani and Clinton are tied in Tennessee. And she's within striking distance in Georgia.
But how will these numbers hold up when the real swiftboating starts?
(Please, no comments along the lines of "It doesn't matter; the election is rigged" or "Kucinich or bust" or SIBPATS or any of that other pap. You have plenty of other places for that.)
Correction: In an earlier post, I opined that Al Franken "probably does not support impeachment." Turns out he does. Since Congress convenes a couple of weeks before the President takes the oath, he favors saving impeachment until two days before Bush's term ends. I think Franken likes this idea because he wants to vote for W's removal. Ah, but how much mischief could President Cheney get up to in that 48 hour period?
4 comments:
Swiftboating of Hillary will be relatively ineffective, IMO, since it has all been done before. The HRC campaign can point to a variety of independent counsels' reports to the effect that there was no there there in all or almost all of these alleged scandals. That is, these were looked at by hard right partisan opponents for the worst that they could allege, and no charges were brought against them.
America's mayor has yet to undergo such scrutiny. To some degree, his GOP opponents will do this job, to dirty him up, as his record surely deserves. Should he become the nominee, his entire sordid record, including subjecting him to a swiftboating of an entirely true nature (the firefighters' unnecessary deaths for which he was responsible), will become known to most of the electorate rather than simply the 1-5% that know of these things now.
Things like his bad judgment re: Kerik will become significant drags on his purported probity. His shameless cashing in for multimillions, which kept him from attending the blue ribbon commission so much he was kicked off for non-attendance, with deals including lobbying for Hugo Chavez, will rise to the surface of the public's awareness.
Rudy!: as New Yorkers found out, the more you see of him, the more there is to dislike.
Personally, I doubt any of the leading Dem candidates would have any trouble beating him in NY, regardless of what polls now say. People in general only know the hero story Rudy, and not all the grubby and sordid details that will become far more widely known as we go along.
Dollars to doughnuts that Romney rides twin wins in Iowa and NH to the early momentum, and once Rudy has to campaign from behind, he self-immolates.
...sofla
...sofla
I don't think these figures mean very much at this point. I can't imagine that ANY Democratic nominee would not carry New York by a significant margin.
What's more significant is the very significant drop in Hillary's numbers in NH and rise in Obama's --
http://www.thebluestate.com/2007/11/nh-2008-more-in.html
sofla's right on all three (or is it it four?) accounts.
Hillary has major star quality like no Presidential candidate has ever had. It's not like pop star stuff either; it's something like the quality a great artist has.
Attacks about old stuff will backfire if anything, so I don't see them coming. Instead I see gynephobia being let loose because it's a real doctrinal pathology. I wish I could cancel out more than one of the votes against her.
I'm not kidding when I say I expect a killer landslide for the Democrats, with Congress sweeping in on Hillary's petticoats.
There's no contest, there's no hidden vigorish because Mr. President Bill Clinton will be campaigning for Hillary also. If y'all don't know the South, y'all are just guessing. Every city in the South has a church on every corner, and Bill will visit every one of them.
I remember watching him talk extemporaneously to a women's group, maybe it was NOW, in September or October of 1991, and it was very obvious that he would be the next President, though he hadn't announced his candidacy yet.
Okay, I'll go out on a limb with this one: I think Hillary has a chance of being elected either by unanimous consent or by acclamation.
The media and y'all want your kicks and hijinx, and it's a free country, but y'all are wasting your time with your weights and measures. I don't think the Republican nominee has announced his or her candidacy yet.
Rudy had a chance to run against Hillary and backed down. Why doesn't the media remember that?
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