hillary's poll numbers simply reflect that she has 100% name recognition and is a polarizing figure. There is no candidate as well known as her and as polarizing that is going to poll in the plurality nationwide. Howard Dean was able to poll well for a long time in 2001 because he was unknown and nobody had formed any opinions about him. So all you had was a fresh face and a name and some nice rhetoric and he polled well. Kerry's numbers were in the toilet in summer 2001 because he was far better known and more polarizing than Dean. Kerry's numbers were worse than Hillary's are now. Yet who got the nomination, Kerry or Dean?

Kerry got the nomination because in the end all the polls and all the bloggers and all the Dean hype didn't add up to much compared to all those precinct captains and party hierarchy in Iowa and New Hampshire. These are people that Hillary has in her back pocket. She knows exactly who the few are who can deliver new hampshire and Iowa for her, she's known them for years and she won't run without having them locked away. For this reason she is going to be a near lock for the nomination if she runs, she will have all the advantages as if she was an incumbent because she helped run her husband's campaigns in the key states in 1992 and 1996 and knows half the democrats in those states on a first name basis.

As for the general election, you are making the assumption that she'll need fifty percent. She may well not. This is because all the speculation of late has Mike Bloomberg ready to spend a half billion or more of his own money on an independent bid. Bloomberg will be this cycle's ross perot. Which will be fine by hillary because the clintons won election twice in three person contests, and both times she and bill had extremely high negatives and scored badly in polls. In a three person race you don't need fifty percent, bill clinton didn't, you need forty percent. hillary will deliver the party's base, just as kerry did even though a lot of dems didn't like kerry. So the polls don't matter at this point, simply don't matter at all. Hillary is going to get the nomination and if she does, she'll have as good a chance as any other democrat to win. Maybe more so because she'll be the first female candidate with a realistic shot in a general election, and women and progressives of both parties and independents may rally around her as her winning would have enormous symbolic significance.

bouldin you have railed on about how important it is that the cd 11th have a black representative because its a majority black district. Could you not see the symbolic significance of a country that is majority female finally having a female president for the same reasons?

...commenter rwallnerny is going to come out and expend some speciousness, having if not insight or any knowledge whatsoever of electoral politics, but certainly some free time.

The critical issue with a putative Hillary candidacy is not the representation of women; it is that there is no present indication that she can win the race. Disparage poll numbers all you will - indeed, you have to do so to make your argument - but there is no indication that the electorate's views of her are anything but stable, and that they are negative.

It means something when a given candidate does not prevail in any theoretical matchup against any name-brand opposing candidate. A Bloomberg candidacy - note to Park Slope liberals, he's not a conservative to the rest of the country - would take votes from our candidate, whoever that is, more than from the deranged wingnut the other side is going to nominate; he would be Ross Perot in reverrse. That is assuming, mind you, that he runs, which no serious analyst thinks likely.

As to women, again, assuming that they will blindly cast their votes for another women is an assumption for which there is no supporting data. Ask Ann Richards.

Is there anything else, or are you just going to restate what you've already said several times and then call me a bad person for pointing out that your "analysis" has no redeeming value or merit whatsoever? Much as your pro-Yassky CD-11 shilling has neither?

look, don't make your attacks personal. I was pointing out some pertinent facts. I used to work in a national polling firm and I can tell you that no candidate with a hundred percent name recognition and half the electorate (meaning the other party) hating her, is going to poll that well this early on. Unless she has a hundred percent of the democratic party in her corner, there is no way she can poll above fifty percent when she gets close to zero republicans. She is going to have worse numbers than other primary candidates where opinions have not been formed yet. This does NOT MEAN those numbers will carry over for a year and a half, two years. They didn't for Kerry did they?

In any case, primary candidates need not worry about national numbers at all until they get nominated. Hillary needs only concerned at this point with her numbers in Iowa and New Hamsphire. Two states, not fifty. Win both of those states and she's a lock for nomination, win one of them and she's at least 50/50. Either way those are the states that count.

Which makes it predictable that when Dean and the DNC have been talking about adding a caucus days after Iowa and before New Hampshire, and adding a primary days after New Hampshire, Bill Clinton spoke out objecting to that. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that adding primaries and caucues messes up the Clinton "two states and we're in" mantra.

Here is a sample of the ARG (american research group) poll of key states taken back in February, source www.americanresearchgroup.com)

2008 Democratic Presidential Primary- February 2006
SC ME NH VT MA CT RI

Bayh 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1%
Biden 1% 1% 2% 2% 2% 3% 1%
Clark 2% 5% 7% 3% 4% 3% 2%
Clinton 30% 36% 32% 34% 36% 38% 34%
Daschle - 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1%
Edwards 15% 6% 9% 3% 4% 3% 2%
Feingold 1% 1% 2% 3% 2% 3% 1%
Gore 8% 5% 5% 6% 7% 4% 6%
Kerry 4% 5% 7% 4% 10% 3% 8%
Richardson - 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1%
Warner 2% 1% 2% 2% 1% 1% 1%
Undecided 36% 37% 31% 40% 31% 39% 42%

What does this show? That yes Hillary polls in the thirties, but also that nobody else gets out of single digits except for Kerry in Mass. and Edwards in S.C. Rule of thumb is you have to be skeptical of any poll results that show undecideds above 25%. This poll shows Kerry and Gore look weak, Edwards looks anemic, and Clark, Warner and all the others barely rate a pulse. Clinton's numbers are a LOT more solid than any other candidates. She is clearly the Democratic frontrunner, she's polling as well or better than any non-incumbent potential democratic candidate two years before the election among primary voters in a long time. Which she should, she has 100% name recognition, few people are undecided about her.

As for general election, here's the June Harris poll numbers:

Definitely
Vote For Might
Consider Definitely
Not Vote For Unsure
% % % %
Hillary Rodham Clinton
22 Defintely will vote for
28 Might vote for
47 Definitely won't vote for
3 Unsure

Al Gore
17 Definitely will vote for
32 Might vote for
48 Definitely won't vote for
3 Unsure

John Kerry
14 Definitely will vote for
35 Might vote for
47 Definitely won't vote for
4 Unsure

Rudolph Giuliani
19 Definitely will vote for
45 Might vote for
30 Definitely won't vote for
6 Unsure

John McCain
12 Definitely will vote for
48 Might vote for
34 Definitely won't vote for
6 Unsure

Jeb Bush
9 Definitely will vote for
26 Might vote for
63 Definitely won't vote for
2 Unsure

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay so look at Hillary's Harris numbers, 22% will vote for, 28% might vote for. Add that up, thats fifty percent right there, enough to win if push came to shove. That shows you she's viable. Gore and Kerry's numbers both add up to 49%. Yes Guiliani's and McCain's numbers are higher but they're going to be at this stage, but you know when the general election comes neither is getting over sixty percent. This is a polarized country. Somebody's going to get 50.1 and somebody will get 49.9. These numbers clearly indicate that Hillary is as capable of getting fifty percent as any other candidate, that clearly fifty percent of the electorate will or might vote for her.

So you wanted some numbers there they are, respected non-partisan numbers, ARG and Harris.

...actually make my case, not yours. When 47% of respondents, within the margin of error for a majority, say they definitely will not vote for a candidate, especially one they know as well as Hillary, that candidate has a problem: it's called being unelectable.

QED.

you are right, 47% of the electorate won't vote for hillary under any circumstances. do you know what those voters are called? They are called REPUBLICANS. You have heard of them haven't you?
Hillary has 100% name recognition among republicans, they almost ALL know for certain they won't vote for her. That is where the 47 percent comes from. If they knew the other candidates as well as Hillary they'd say the same thing.

Hillary doesn't care about that 47% nor should she. To win she needs 50.1 percent, and that Harris poll shows she already without doing any campaigning has 50% of the electorate who will or might vote for her.

Add in one percent of the three percent undecided to the 50% and you have a winner. The only thing those polls really say is that she's so well known that the people who don't like her already know they don't like her. Big deal. She still starts out with higher numbers than any other democratic candidate.

Look: just restating your original position is not an argument. What you're basically asking of the Democratic Party, with the kind of unique insight that characterizes your commentary, is a 2008 strategy that amounts to a Hail Mary pass; this, by the way, long before the first primary ballot s cast. Sure, that could work, in much the same way that buying a lottery ticket could make you very rich indeed. The problem is that it is highly unlikely, just as it is highly unlikely for a candidate with a 47-22 support split to win a general election. For Hillary to win, everything would have to break just right for her; a possibility, to be sure, but so is getting struck by lightning, repeatedly.

Not least, this is the generally accepted conventional wisdom among Democratic strategists, such as myself, who actually want to win in 2008, rather than "make a statement" or some such. In addition, most people believe that the primary process is the way to choose the nominee, not some kind of monarchical succession of the kind you seem to favor.

Here's the deal, though: you're obviously invested emotionally in this. I'm not. I would respectfully suggest you evaluate your position from the point of view of a republican strategist; not a bad way to look at the question. And from that perspective, it makes sense that the other side is rooting for Hillary almost as strenuously as you are.

Meanwhile, I suggest that you take your "Bouldin is wrong" vendetta to the front page. Instead of writing romance novels purporting to show that everything I write is wrong, why don't you write your own posts? I'd imagine that would be more interesting than the pissing contests you insist on getting into whenever I post about your two objects of veneration, David Yassky and Hillary Clinton.

Other than that, a period of silence from you would now be most welcome.

Just because I think hillary is electable and that david yassky, who I do NOT support, has the right to run regardless of his skin color, does not mean I "venerate" them. I am not sure I would support Hillary in the primary, that all depends on who is running and how she responds to the issues.

You are the one who is acting spiteful, insisting things that you are repeatedly told are not the case. You seem to want the most republican looking democratic candidate for president as possible. Got news for you, your hero wesley clark was a weak candidate who got his ass kicked. He should not run again, he lacks the experience to be a worthy campaigner. Mark Warner will also get his ass kicked because he hasn't played at that level before. Just like John Edwards, I liked Edwards but he was a weak VP candidate because he lacked the experience and the campaign trail ate him up.

The most viable experienced presidential candidates the democrats could have, the ones the press won't eat up, are Hillary or Gore or Kerry. Those are the facts. I'd love to see Feingold run but he may not have any more success than some of these others.

Lastly stop complaining about my arguing over your comments. Why do you make comments on a blog if you dont want people to post and argue with you about them? If you can't take criticism you shouldn't blog. With blogging, like politics,you need thick skin. You ought to be glad people respond to your posts, regardless of how they respond.