Hillary's poll numbers tanking...

[Jeremy517]

[ QUOTE ]
To claim that it's a "fact of the matter that Hilary is way too polarizing of a candidate" to win in a general election is ridiculous. Has she had a bad month? Yes. Is she a lock to even win her own nomination at this point? Of course not. Is the smart money still on her to win the election? I'd say so. That's a far cry from "it's a fact she's too polarizing to win". The actual "fact" is that she's a huge favorite to win the general election and it's really not even close at this point.

[/ QUOTE ]

It has nothing to do with her bad month, it has to do with Republican turnout. There is always going to be dislike for a candidate from the opposite party, but not to the level of the Republicans and Hillary. I'm not exactly saying ground-breaking stuff here, so the fact that you are acting like I made some sort of shocking statement is a little baffling.

Also, the dislike for Hilary isn't just in the Republican party. There are swing voters who feel the same way. Check out the Zogby poll from last month (possibly from even before her "bad month"?), asking which candidate you would never consider voting for. Hillary won with 50% of the vote. For reference, Guiliani was at 43%, Obama 37%, Edwards 42%, Thompson 41%, etc. Considering the margin in swing states, those are huge differences.

[NickMPK]

[ QUOTE ]


It has nothing to do with her bad month, it has to do with Republican turnout. There is always going to be dislike for a candidate from the opposite party, but not to the level of the Republicans and Hillary. I'm not exactly saying ground-breaking stuff here, so the fact that you are acting like I made some sort of shocking statement is a little baffling.

Also, the dislike for Hilary isn't just in the Republican party. There are swing voters who feel the same way. Check out the Zogby poll from last month (possibly from even before her "bad month"?), asking which candidate you would never consider voting for. Hillary won with 50% of the vote. For reference, Guiliani was at 43%, Obama 37%, Edwards 42%, Thompson 41%, etc. Considering the margin in swing states, those are huge differences.

[/ QUOTE ]

The "Republicans hate Hillary" effect is really overstated. (Note that I am not Hillary supporter.)
Certainly Democrats hated Bush in 2004 at least as much as Republicans hate Hillary now, and we see how that turned out.

Zogby is really the worst pollster you can cite right now, because as I mentioned before, he is attempting to use internet polls, and his recent record has been terrible. Also, citing figures answering the question "Who will you never vote for" doesn't indicate anything about how many people will turnout to vote against for. For example, I'll bet that 20% said they would "never" vote for both Clinton and Giuliani. If they are the nominees, what happens to GOP turnout?

[Luxoris]

[quote If they are the nominees, what happens to GOP turnout?

[/ QUOTE ]

Between the Clinton name and misogyny the GOP turnout will be huge. The only question is whether the net effects would be larger than the net racist effect.

The general election only has 3 out of the 4 possibilities (under the current economic and foreign policy conditions)imo: A narrow GOP win, a substantial GOP win, a narrow Dem win. I can't see a basis for expecting a substantial Dem win.

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
The general election only has 3 out of the 4 possibilities (under the current economic and foreign policy conditions)imo: A narrow GOP win, a substantial GOP win, a narrow Dem win. I can't see a basis for expecting a substantial Dem win.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're one year removed from a historic Democratic Congressional sweep (pretty much the opposite of '94), the Dem candidates are summarily outraising the GOP candidates for the first time in several decades, the incumbent President is hampering his own party to a substantial degree, and there's a widely unpopular war on. The biggest criticism of Congress is, essentially, that they're not doing enough to reverse the policies the GOP has implemented and cave in to them too often. Finally, twice as many GOP senators are up for re-election as Dems.

If these factors lead you to conclude that the best the Democrats can hope for is a narrow win, I once again invite all comers to wager on it.

[owsley]

[ QUOTE ]
The general election only has 3 out of the 4 possibilities (under the current economic and foreign policy conditions)imo: A narrow GOP win, a substantial GOP win, a narrow Dem win. I can't see a basis for expecting a substantial Dem win.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see how this can possibly be correct seeing how all of the online bookmaking sites I have looked at list the Democrat party as the favorite. If anything it should be the opposite, a substantial Republican win is the least likely outcome. I wouldn't go so far as to say there is no basis for that happening, but it is certainly the least likely option.

I think that people who view Clinton as a bad nominee are flat out misreading things. First, the people who hate Hillary have hated her and her husband for 15+ years now. No undecided voters are walking around saying "[censored] shrillary", all those people made up their mind a long time ago and probably would have been active in the election no matter what. Her husband was the most popular President of the last 20 years, despite the pathetically perpetuated Lewinsky scandal. Given 9/11 and how badly the war in Iraq has turned out, a mistake like that seems pretty quaint. I think running a black candidate has WAY more negative possibilities than Hillary by a long way. The bookmakers know about the anti hillary movement, and they have her ahead in the Democratic Primary and have the Democrats ahead in the election. What does that tell you. I don't remember the anti hillary crowd coming out and making threads about how well she was doing when she overtook Obama. Every campaign has ups and downs and I hardly see this development as a death knell. I think adanthar is pretty much on the money, especially the first two lines of this post:


[ QUOTE ]
A lot of people keep saying that. These people usually have an (R) next to their names. The trouble is (and, incidentally, I agree this *is* trouble) they are extremely wrong. She might be a mediocre to bad pick, but she is a Clinton, has already shown she'll outraise any GOP candidate 2:1 without trying very hard, and - if she does win the primaries - will have her aura back. To counter this, the GOP will field one of their own slate of highly suspect candidates - if there's one person who can't win a general election in this entire field, it's Romney - who has the added stumbling block of trying to distance himself from a sitting, unpopular president of the same party. Hillary might well be the worst Democrat pick, but saying she can't win...yeah, I'd put up 5K, too.

[/ QUOTE ]

No matter how much some people hate hillary they are seeing things in a very biased way, and that is definitely not the same way the Democratic base or middle of the road voters see it. Don't get the impression from this post that I think its not a close race, it is, and it is still really early to be making broad statements like "Hillary can't beat the Republicans but Obama can" (uh, we are talking about hillarys weaknesses and the other guy is black? If hillary being disliked by hardcore republicans is that much of a factor to swing everyone against her, we probably shouldn't ignore the reaction that the other guy is black and running in a NATIONAL election... is it just me or is everyone ignoring that because they want to pile on hillary?)

I don't think it is by a large margin and its very early, but I am convinced right now she is the favorite to win. And given that she has the best run campaign and tons of other resources, that might mean more than an unknown being in the lead. And you had better believe that I do not like Hillary very much, I do NOT want to see her be president.

[Jeremy517]

[ QUOTE ]
Zogby is really the worst pollster you can cite right now, because as I mentioned before, he is attempting to use internet polls, and his recent record has been terrible.

[/ QUOTE ]

It was a phone poll.

[ QUOTE ]
Also, citing figures answering the question "Who will you never vote for" doesn't indicate anything about how many people will turnout to vote against for.

[/ QUOTE ]

Naturally. I wasn't trying to tie the two, I was just trying to make another point.

[AngusThermopyle]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Zogby is really the worst pollster you can cite right now, because as I mentioned before, he is attempting to use internet polls, and his recent record has been terrible.

[/ QUOTE ]

It was a phone poll.



[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

Figures from the earlier surveys cited in this news release are from Zogby International telephone surveys, including 1,012 likely voters in the July survey and 993 likely voters in the May survey.

The online survey included 9,150 likely voters nationwide, and was conducted Nov. 21–26, 2007. It carries a margin of error of +/– 1.0 percentage points.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Max Raker]

[ QUOTE ]

It has nothing to do with her bad month, it has to do with Republican turnout. There is always going to be dislike for a candidate from the opposite party, but not to the level of the Republicans and Hillary. I'm not exactly saying ground-breaking stuff here, so the fact that you are acting like I made some sort of shocking statement is a little baffling.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, the stuff you are saying is obvious, everybody knows that some people hate Hillary. What is baffling is that you are using this fact to arrive at a conclusion so far off from what polls, gambling sites and pundits are saying.

The polarizing argument is so ridiculous. If 40% of the electorate would rather die then see you elected but the other 60% vote for you, you will win. All a person that hates Hillary can do is vote for the other guy. They don't get to vote twice or put a negative vote for Hillary. If Hillary doesn't win it will be because not enough people want her to be president. Can't believe I had to type that.

[Jeremy517]

[ QUOTE ]
The polarizing argument is so ridiculous. If 40% of the electorate would rather die then see you elected but the other 60% vote for you, you will win.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would require all swing voters to go for her. Good luck with that one. Some percentage of the 50% will show up to vote against her. Some percentage of the Democratic base that will vote for the Democratic candidate no matter what will show up. The difference has to be made up (or not lost, if it is in your favor) in the swing voters. The size of the hole/mountain is the question.

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
Some percentage of the 50% will show up to vote against her. Some percentage of the Democratic base that will vote for the Democratic candidate no matter what will show up. The difference has to be made up (or not lost, if it is in your favor) in the swing voters. The size of the hole/mountain is the question.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
What is baffling is that you are using this fact to arrive at a conclusion so far off from what polls, gambling sites and pundits are saying.

[/ QUOTE ]

^ Read this again

We can ignore the pundits, but perhaps you should consider the polling and prediction markets before continuing any further with the "Hillary can't win because she's too polarizing" argument. Actually, maybe you should have considered polling, prediction markets, obvious fund-raising cues, etc. first, but better late than never, right?

I mean, I get the argument; clearly there exists a meme that Hillary is too polarizing to win in a general election. Okay. Fair enough. Is that narrative true?

Well, what kind of indicators and empirical evidence do we have to suggest this isn't true?

Head to head polling shows her not only competitive with the top GOP candidates but beating them. She's "winning" the fund-raising battle in many of the top industries and special interests who aren't so much ideologically inclined as they are looking to hedge their bets and maintain their influence peddling. And not only that, pretty much eveery [censored] gambling site spreading odds says she's the favorite.

Scientific polling, fundraising evidence, and predictions markets probably trump whatever you or I or some right-wing blowhard has to say on the matter, yes?

So smart money says "Hillary is too polarizing to win" probably isn't a true statement.