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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Travis_Bickle who wrote (120692)	12/4/2007 11:49:40 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 361717

I think she can be elected, especially with somebody like Judy Rulliani as an opponent, but I think it would be bad for the country. I'm with you; I will not vote for her. She's a warmonger. She helped enable the death of 4K Americans, ?K Iraqis, and the wasting of 2 trillion dollars which could have gone into her health care plan. I wouldn't vote for her for dawg catcher in a one person race. That may make me a bad Dem, but it makes me a good American. PS. You know what? She told me she didn't even want my vote. "f you don't like my Iraq vote, get another candidate". Fine with me. thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

To: Travis_Bickle who wrote (120692)	12/4/2007 3:57:47 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361717

Why Hillary won't win The flaw at the heart of Hillary Clinton's campaign to be US president: poll after poll shows that many voters don't like her or trust her Richard Adams December 2, 2007 4:00 PM \| Printable version On Thursday evening last week, as James Brown's Living In America pulsed out across a packed Apollo Theatre in Harlem, Barack Obama paced the stage, shaking hands with supporters. The Illinois senator had just made a rapturously received speech in which he enjoined the audience to "stand up with me" and "reach for what's possible". A 76-year-old man, George Patton Jr, was standing beside me at the time. He waved his ticket stub aloft. "I am going to have this framed for my grand-daughter, for my great-grand-daughter. This is a historic event," he said, a catch in his voice. Patton had no doubt Obama would win the Democratic nomination and, eventually, the White House. "He has the courage and the vision and the decency to speak the truth," he said. "The truth will always prevail in the end." For much of the summer and early autumn that kind of faith in Obama would have seemed quixotic. Obama caused feverish excitement when he entered the race in February. But his campaign seemed to become becalmed as the months passed by. Some tentative debate performances were blamed, and the aura of inevitability that Hillary Clinton was said to enjoy became even stronger. Things look very different now. At the end of last month, Clinton turned in a poor performance at a debate in Philadelphia. Just as her campaign felt she was beginning to recover, a Washington Post/ABC News poll in November brought unwelcome news. It showed Obama leading Clinton by 30% to 26% among likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, the crucial state which is the first stop in the race for the White House. Clinton remains the front-runner, at least according to most political analysts and media pundits. But how long will that view hold? The evidence that Clinton is likely to lose the battle for her party's nomination is steadily accumulating. Consider one rule-of-thumb: an incumbent candidate in a two-horse race almost always needs to be at or above 50% in the polls in the run-up to election day. The 50% figure is obviously of little relevance in a multi-candidate race. But the principle behind the theory - that voters who are "undecided" in advance of polling day tend to break disproportionately in favour of a challenger - is germane. Hillary Clinton is the de facto incumbent in the Democratic race. The traditional advantages of incumbency - name recognition, the overwhelming backing of the party establishment, a proven track record - are all hers in abundance. In that context, her capacity to attract the support of only around one-quarter of Iowa Democrats is not merely disappointing. It is dreadful. There are other ominous signs for Clinton. A recent poll by the American Research Group (ARG) also gave Obama the lead in Iowa. The margin - 27% to 25% - seemed negligible. But anyone who drilled deeper into the results would have found another message. Whereas at least three-quarters of the supporters of Clinton and Obama said their backing for their candidate was "definite", a significantly lower figure - only 57% - of those pledging allegiance to John Edwards said the same thing. So-called "soft" supporters of Edwards - who has aggressively attacked Clinton throughout the campaign - are surely more likely to move their support to Obama than to the former First Lady. Plenty can happen between now and January 3, when the caucuses take place. But Obama should now be seen as the favourite to win the Hawkeye State. Clinton loyalists are adamant that such a result, though unwelcome, would not be a disaster. They point to New Hampshire, which holds its primary on January 8, as a potential firewall, insulating the New York senator from the effects of an Iowa loss. Maybe. Certainly Clinton's support in New Hampshire is higher than in Iowa, in part because of her husband's immense popularity there. But her lead is shrinking. Another ARG poll on Friday suggested her advantage over Obama had dwindled from 18% a month ago to 11% last week. A CNN/University of New Hampshire poll the previous week showed a similar pattern, with Clinton's advantage down from 23% to 12%. Were Obama to win both early contests, or merely win Iowa and run Clinton very close in New Hampshire, the dynamics of the race would be fundamentally altered. There is a stark reason why Clinton would struggle to survive such setbacks. It is the not-so-secret flaw at the heart of her candidacy: people just don't like her very much. Anecdotal evidence of this is easy to find. Follow Clinton even for a short time on the campaign trail and one is struck by how many of her grassroots supporters talk about her with semi-detached expressions of respect or admiration rather than real affection. Polling data bears out the same idea. Back in June, a CNN-University of New Hampshire poll asked Democrats in that state which of the contenders was most likeable. Only 14% vouched for Clinton, who placed a distant third behind Obama (40%) and Edwards (20%). Last week's CNN poll did not ask exactly the same question. But when asked which of the candidates was the most honest and trustworthy, New Hampshire Democrats put Clinton fourth. As the electoral success of disparate figures from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton bears out, likeability is vital in American politics. Hillary Clinton simply doesn't have it. That leaves her support perilously mushy. Obama supporters should not get too carried away, however. It may be unlikely that Clinton, after 15 years at the epicentre of American politics, can between now and January 3 convince doubters that she is, after all, a paragon of honesty and plain-speaking. But the former First Lady and her advisors are nothing if not battle-hardened: they may well try to neutralise their main challenger's advantage by ruthlessly attacking his integrity in the weeks ahead. If that doesn't work, it could all come unstuck for Clinton. On Monday, Katie Couric of CBS suggested to the former First Lady that she must have thought about the possibility that she would lose the nomination. "No, I haven't," Clinton shot back icily. It might be time for her to start. commentisfree.guardian.co.uk