Burnt Orange Report

HRC '08?

By Byron LaMasters

She polls better than I would otherwise expect (although, consider the source):

Hillary Clinton: 40%
Bill Frist: 33
Other/not sure: 27

Hillary Clinton: 41%
George Pataki: 35
Other/not sure: 24

Hillary Clinton: 46%
Jeb Bush: 35
Other/not sure: 19

John Kerry: 45%
Jeb Bush: 37
Other/not sure: 18

Is HRC qualified to be President (YES/NO/UNDECIDED):

Overall: 59/34/7
Men: 53/39/8
Women: 64/29/8
Democrats: 84/10/6
Republicans: 33/59/8
Independents: 58/33/9

HRC isn't my first choice, but I think that she would make a decent nominee, although I don't see how she expands the playing field in ways that someone like Mark Warner could. I do think that HRC is a polarizing figure, but then again, she's no more polarizing than President Bush. However, I'd prefer to start the campaign with someone with significantly lower negatives. John Kerry was just as polarizing as George W. Bush by election day, but it took the right-wing smear machine most of year to get it that way. Then again, Ezra might be right - that the whole 'Hillary is polarizing' mantra could just easily be "nothing more than a bunch of liberals too sensitive to the caterwauling of a fringe group of conservative misogynists". I don't know.

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with one of our earlier commenters yesterday. Two people that I would like to see more from are Russ Feingold and Mark Warner. Russ Feingold is one of the most honorable and principled men in politics, and Mark Warner is the type of southern governor in the Carter/Clinton mold that has proved to be the only winning combination for Democrats (like it or not) in the past thirty years. It's still early, and who knows what the national political landscape will look like in 2008, but its never too early to talk about it.

MyDD has some thoughts as well.