Jun 20 2006
Hillary Losing Ground In ’08
Hillary Clinton is losing ground in her bid to become not only the Demcrat Presidential nominee, but the next US President.
Regarding potential Democratic candidates, 47 percent of respondents said they would “definitely vote against” both Clinton, the junior senator from New York who is running for re-election this year, and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party’s candidate in 2004.
Forty-eight percent said the same of former Vice President Al Gore, who has repeatedly denied he intends to run again for president.
Clinton running as poorly as the last two big Democrat losers is not a good sign. Kerry and Gore are proven failures and it is the Democrat base that doesn’t want a re-run of 2000 and 2004. I doubt many Reps would be all that upset at a re-run against either of these guys.
This seems to be a loss in support, though it is hard to tell. There was this previous poll from January showing 51% would definitely vote against Hillary – but that is right around the Margin of Error. But this poll from last year showed a totally different story: 53% claiming they would support a Hillary run for President. Now I doubted that poll back then and it seems to be an outliar in some ways. But it is clear a Hillary run is right now an uphill battle (no pun intended) and the core challenge is a the leftwing of the Democrat base.
The Dems are going to be hard-pressed to come up with a candidate that can veer as smoothly to the center during the campaign as Slick did without alienating the base, which has veered significantly to the left since 1992. A sliver-tongued shyster like Bill Clinton just doesn’t come along all that often, thank God.
Accidential puns can be fun too!
Remember that Bill won twice without achieivng 50% of the vote.
HRC allies have a big reason to promote a third party candidate as they try to get HRC positioned in the low 40’s.
Their dream will be McCain going indie as the jilted candidate in the Republican primaries. If that doesn’t work, there will be other spoilers promoted. They desparately need someone to peel off 10% of the conservative vote – immigration or cultural/religious issues can do that.
I don’t think the threat is McCain going independent, I think it is the right wing going off and doing a Ross Perot and handing the election to someone like Hillary. That is how Bill won.