Hillary's Rebranding Is a Work in Progress: no room for kerryboy, ketchup digger
The good news for Hillary Clinton is that polls increasingly suggest the American public thinks a woman can be "tough enough" to be president. The bad news for a certain Senator from New York is that the same public has yet to be convinced that she's that woman.
This month's Westhill/Hotline poll found that a whopping 85% of those asked said they'd be willing to vote for a "qualified woman" for president. An even greater number of respondents, 86%, said they believed a woman can be "tough enough" to be President of the United States. So far, so good for Ms. Clinton, who is floated as a top Democratic prospect for a 2008 presidential bid.
The trouble comes when the pollsters started naming names. When asked about Ms. Clinton in particular, only 58% of those asked felt she was "tough enough" to take over as commander-in-chief. As Hotline noted: "Even among Dems, the tough-enough number falls 10 points when HRC's name replaces a generic woman." Ms. Clinton did match up favorably to Secretary of State Condi Rice, who only 46% thought adequately "tough," though Ms. Rice has never even seriously floated the idea of holding elected office.
All this has to be viewed with some concern by the Clinton-for-President team, given that Hillary has spent her Senatorship attempting to portray herself as a stalwart in the war on terror and to distance herself from her party's weakness on national defense. Ms. Clinton was quick to nab herself a seat on the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee and voted for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. When President Bush gave his big Iraq speech at the end of last month, every other Democratic hopeful -- John Kerry, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh -- took to the airwaves to pound the administration on the war. Ms. Clinton kept silent.
Ms. Clinton's bigger problem may be her failure to challenge the naysayers in her own party. The anti-war, defeatist rhetoric from Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean and MoveOn.org has been on the rise, yet Ms. Clinton has barely stirred to speak out against this Democratic view, or explain coherently why she has taken stances so at odds with her party's noisiest voices. This is the sort of nonaction that makes voters question if her tough talk on national defense is more a political calculation than a matter of heartfelt belief. No wonder the public still has doubts about whether Ms. Clinton is "tough enough" to be POTUS.
-- Kimberley Strassel |
