Jim Henley makes the case. It involves reading a lot into a single bit of polling data, but I think it's fairly compelling. As with much in politics, though, a lot comes down to how the candidates respond under pressure as the lights start shining on them brighter.
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HRC's Inevitability?
09 May 2007 11:58 pm
Comments (32)
Yeah, that's reading WAY too much into one piece of data.
On the other hand: Clinton, Edwards, and Obama may end up being indistinguishable (from a moderately low-information voter's perspective) on Iraq over the next seven months. Clinton's fame and appeal to women may be enough for her to withstand her rivals and win the primary.
But I don't think it will be because voters made some conscious choice to support her in spite of their views about Iraq.
"As with much in politics, though, a lot comes down to how the candidates respond under pressure as the lights start shining on them brighter."
Bright lights = Iowa and New Hampshire.
Hillary does have a lot of inevitability. But if she pooches multiple early contests, it all evaporates instantly.
If I were Mark Penn, I'd be thanking my lucky stars for Charlie Crist and trying to make Florida my firewall...
And Rudy is coming out of the closet as a proud pro-choicer!
We live in interesting times.
It's still very early in this campaign. Don't get too worked up over what the horserace looks like now.
There are indications that there will be another incident, similar to 9/11 somewhere in the Mid-East. Apparently the Israeli government has caught wind of it, because they are betting that the Israeli public will "flip" in their opinion of the Olmert government. At least, Olmert survived a no-confidence motion, in spite of being extremely unpopular with the Israeli public.
Then there are those 3 (count 'em, three) aircraft carrier groups gathered in the Persian Gulf. Does that have something to do with the Olmert's government's expectations? I'd almost bet that it does.
What is going to decide this race is the future direction of the US foreign policy. Anyone who saw the documentary last night on the History Channel about the origins of the Spanish American war and the "Turner Doctrine" (permanent espansion) can guess what's about to happen next.
The end.
Clinnton's supporters are older, that should make a difference too, esp wrt Obama voters.
But mainly, Clinton voters are poorer than the rest.
So presumably more low-information.
I actually don't think Jon is right, even though it makes sense. But the assumption that she has strong core support isn't new or contrarian. It means that her support won't collapse like Lieberman's, but it doesn't say anything about her inevitability.
Jim Henley makes the case. It involves reading a lot into a single bit of polling data...
This "Jim Henley" appears to be a dog, and a sideways dog to boot. And Border Collies can sure read too much into a given amount of data. It's their schtick.
It isn't polite to pile on, but so much can change even before the Dem. primaries, and we do get surprises in early primaries too (remember Dean in Iowa?)
For the early changes:
Yes, Hillary is leading in most polls, but that could dramatically change by Sept 07 or Jan. 08.
And yes, even Al Gore could ride onto the stage before the primaries, although that seems unlikely. Just a few missteps by a candidate, or some major action on the positive side could upset the turnip cart - so don't set the veggie soup on the fire just yet: Peas porridge hot, pease porridge cold, Some like it in the pot nine days old. Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Yeah, you can read that data and get exactly the opposite conclusion.
It's not that people support Hillary despite knowing that she's to the right of Obama and Edwards on the war. It's that they support her in ignorance of that fact. And when they learn her relative positions, her numbers are due for a drop. It's the Giuliani story, basically, if not so stark.
"It isn't polite to pile on, but so much can change even before the Dem. primaries, and we do get surprises in early primaries too (remember Dean in Iowa?)"
Dean never had anywhere near the kind of party power that Hillary does. The only surprise was that Dean hit his brick wall early rather than later.
The low information voters belong to Hillary, and they will still belong to her at Christmas. That's not saying she's inevitable, but it's halfway there.
I definitely see a scenario where Edwards can win early contests and reformat the structure of the race enough to win. But denying what a strong position Hillary is in is to deny reality.
Are we going to be stuck with Clintons and Bushes forever? It seems like there's been a Clinton or Bush on every ballot since 1980.
Enough is enough.
She won't get my vote in the primary.
At least chickengeorge has sunk Jeb!s chances.
HRC is tough and has some experience with media knife fights so she may survive when the attack ads start running. I wonder how those low info voters will react to ominous voiceovers saying:
"In 1992, Hillary Clinton was put in charge of healthcare reform and yet 15 years later the situation for the average American family is even worse. Can we really trust her to fix the system."
"Senator Clinton says she will be a prudent Commander-in-Chief, but she supported the failed Iraq War so she could remain a viable presidential candidate."
"Hillary Clinton says she will protect our civil liberties but while in the Senate, she helped pass laws that restrict our freedoms."
I don't think Hillary's the inevitable Democratic winner. She still has to show that she can get the job done on the campaign trail when things get tight. And I'm assuming things will get tight.
But I'm also the kind of person that Jim Henley is talking about. I got on the Hillary bandwagon early (March 2005) and have stayed there despite substantive disagreements on the war and being impressed by Obama (Edwards gives me the creeps). Ultimately, I believe Hillary has the best chance to be a successful president in our current poisonous environment. Hillary has shown that she can stand up to the non-stop, right-wing assault that any Democratic president is going to get. She has shown that she can deal with big business dominance and that she can function successfully at the White House level.
All of those things have proven to be bigger with me than my disagreements with her over the war and other issues.
She has shown that she can deal with big business dominance..
By doing what?
"By doing what?"
By sucking up to big business, of course.
Vote Hillary! John Edwards would just waste time fighting for the rights of people.
I don't remember Edwards having a big reputation for "fighting for the rights of the people" while he was in the Senate.
As I remember the Clinton administration, their basic pattern was forging compromises between business interests and traditional democratic constituencies (labor, consumers, etc.). To be sure, Clinton-era compromises favored business interests, but the compromises also reflected the overwhelming power that big business has in American society. Specifically in relation to this discussion, business has the power to destroy Democratic administrations and this is part of what happened to Jimmy Carter.
I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't take Obama long to catch up on the power of big business in the U. S. (Edwards doesn't really count for much), but Hillary already has a grasp on this kind of power dynamic. That's one of the reasons why she'd have a better chance to have a successful presidency.
Can someone ask Jim Henley for me what the weather will be like on April 23, 2008? Because I was thinking of having a picnic that day.
That's not an argument for voting for Hillary, it's an argument against voting at all.
"That's not an argument for voting for Hillary"
As I'm sure you're well aware, Satan himself couldn't craft a viable argument for voting for Hillary.
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And Ric Caric, considering the source, I embrace your hatred for Edwards. It lets me know he must be doing something right!
Vote Hillary! She's electorally weak and politically centrist! What more could anyone want?
Ed Marshall, that's the point. This whole inevitability argument is Hillary and her people attempting to suppress the primary vote among people who dislike her. She knows her position in the early states is a lot waker than it is nationally, and if she loses Iowa she probably won't be the nominee. That's why she spends so much time arguing that it doesn't matter, so that we don't bother voting.
Electability: In the final analysis, Hillary is the most electable because she is the Democrat most likely to stand up to the barrage of negative ads from the GOP.
Hatred: I don't hate John Edwards. I don't know John Edwards. He has a preacherly unctuousness that gives me the creeps but might be a prince of an unctous guy for all I know. By the way, you don't know me any more than I know Edwards.
The Larger Context. Sometimes I think that some people in the netroots aren't any more realistic about American society than Bush and Cheney are about Iraq. It's a fact that big business is the dominant force in American society and that any Democratic administration (that wanted a second term) would have to kowtow to the corporate sector. That will be the case until the left has the political muscle to break business dominance. At this point that muscle isn't there and there doesn't seem to be a strong prospect of developing it.
The question then becomes who is going to have a better chance at getting the 1/3 to 1/2 a loaf that is possible to get in relation to business. My thinking is that Hillary would do best on this score, Obama would eventually figure it out, and that Edwards ultimately would lose ground because of business backlash.
Cmon, it's not like Edwards or Obama or for that matter anyone within light years of the nomination is a threat to big business. They won't exactly be shaking in their boots from their skyboxes at the democratic convention no matter who wins. There is prudence (which I still wouldn't necessarily agree with) and there is just noxious cowardice.
The first Clinton term was an excercise in jettisoning principle for technocratic wonkery largely to clean up the fiscal mess left behind by the Reagan/Bush legacy. Now you want to bring in another Clinton to do the same job after another Bush term? If that's the new function of the democratic party that's not just thin gruel, it's thankless poison.
This Bush/Clinton thing is too much. The Bush administration is going to leave a mess behind because it's a right-wing government, not because a guy named Bush was president. Likewise, Bill Clinton didn't spend eight years cleaning up from the Reagan-Bush era because his name was Clinton.
I have a lot of left-wing wishes I'd like to fulfill, but I can't see how 2008-2016 is going to be an era of left-wing wish fulfillment. To be honest, I have doubts concerning whether the Bush-Cheney military, foreign policy, regulatory, judicial, and fiscal mess can be cleaned up in eight years. This is where we live though and the next eight years is going to be dominated by a very difficult clean-up in an extremely tough political environment.
Hillary Clinton isn't the best person for this job because her name is Clinton. She's the best person because she has the wonkish knowledge, determination, and compromising imagination needed to have a chance of getting the job done.
Back to the considerations in the top post, this is the bottom line for me. My support for Clinton is rooted in the gut feeling that she would be the best president for the difficult and uncertain times that lie ahead.
Re: dynasties.
The Bushes are a dynasty -- multi-generations of politicians,, handed down father to son. The Clintons won't be a dynasty unless Chelsea runs for office. The Clintons are a partnership. They shared the same political experience and worked together through it. HRC can take as much credit for the Clinton administration as can Al Gore. Buying into the frame that Clintons are a dynasty like the Bushes is tainting HRC with GWB's unpopularity. When the GOP finally turns on Bush in favor of their new candidate, they will start talking about how awful "dynasties" are. Stop buying it now.
Re: HRC and Iraq. Clinton's position on Iraq will evolve as the situation evolves. She is among the very best at finding and occupying the position where the majority is, and will be for a while. You can't have it both ways: you can't say that she is both unprincipled and that she will be advocating a suicidally 2002 pro-war position in 2008. She may have been less antiwar than you were for the last few years, but, if the war continues to tank as it has, Clinton will be sufficiently antiwar to be a clear choice vs. the GOP candidate.
Finally re: electibility. Clinton has been intimately involved with the only two winning Democratic Presidential campaigns in recent history. People who keep saying that she cannot win, have for the most part, never won. Maybe, we are underestimating her, as would be might be expected for a woman doing something traditionally male for the first time. Somehow her success is not genuine, or is luck, or is fatally flawed by too much effort and calculation, or is fueled by unattractive personal qualities, or was enabled by a man, or will come apart when the pressure gets tough. Could be, but it is also possible that she is a very bright, very-hard working, very shrewd, very skilled and very acute political strategist and politician and that the reason why she stays in the front runner spot is that she is doing most things better than her rivals. In other words, she might be a great Presidential candidate and even a good President.
her unfavorable numbers are consistently in the high 40s, and the race hasn't begun for most people (only a fraction of the nation pays attention until the primaries begin). has anyone won the presidency when he was stuck with those numbers at this early stage?
Ric,
I have to agree with Chris. There's a lot of people who don't like Hilary. It's not just the Right -- a lot of independents and Democrats dislike her. My Mom, for instance, is a partisan Democrat who listens to Air America and she absolutely can't stand Hilary. She's going to have a tough time getting elected with those unfavorability ratings.
"her lead depends on maintaining support among low-information, anti-war votersIn the 1970s"
Wow, those were the same people who got Kerry nominated.
In the 1970s, sort-of-mavericks won major party presidential nominations. McGovern won, then Carter. Reagan nearly knocked off an incumbent president in 1976. People like Mo Udall and Jerry Brown were serious candidates.
Alot of how we view the presidential primaries come from those contests, but those days are really over. The rules have changed (in some cases, literally) to stack things in favor of the establishment candidate. The 1980 election was the last time an incumbent president was challenged in the primary. Since then we have had twelve major party nominations decided. The breakdown is as follows:
Incumbent president renominated without opposition: 3 times
Incumbent president renominated, gadfly opposition: 1 time
VP in outgoing administartion nominated, little opposition: 2 times
Obvious, big name early frontrunner wins: 2 times
Big money flows early to a governor, who wins despite weak performance in early primaries: 3 times
Establishment favorite outraised and dominated in the polls by a maverick, wins nearly every primary anyway: 1 time
We have pieces of data, and only 2004 challenges the pattern in any way. I'm not sure about the reasons, but the establishment candidate is almost certain to win. Its also been happening earlier and earlier in the process. I think the only way HRC loses this is if Gore enters the race.
For similar reasons, I think the Republican nomination will go to a candidate who enters the race late, but with backing by the White House.
I cannot say this often enough. Middle America cannot stand HRC. Left, Right, Independant: It doesn't matter. Almost entirely, they do not like Hillary. Obama can pick up votes in Middle America. Edwards might even spread the D-love a bit. Hillary takes all the gains that could be made by people finally waking up to how ridiculously terrible the currents Reps are and flushes it down the drain.
Obviously, Hillary does have high negatives and that is a problem for her.
But it's far from insurmountable.
Among Democrats, the people who hate Hillary are mostly on the left. That's hurt her, but she still has a substantial national lead in the polling despite the emergence of a strong competitor in Obama.
If Hillary performs well as a campaigner, she should be able to hold her lead through the Democratic primaries. Of course, that's a substantial "if."
If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, what are Hillary-hating Democrats on the left going to do? Vote Republican and keep the war going as it is, reconfirm Bush admininstration torture policy, and pile up more debt? I don't see that happening.
Concerning the general election, I believe that Hillary would win very handily. Whoever is the Republican candidate, they'll be weighed down by the unpopular war and defending the Bush legacy of incompetence. They'll also be weighed down by the lack of enthusiasm among conservative Republicans (which is a serious problem). Just about any Democrat could win in 2008, including Hillary. I've see it as something like 57%-44%.
This doesn't matter. If Hillary is destined to get the nomination, then she is. And I certainly will not vote for her, now or ever. It's Barack all the way. If she gets the nomination, I'll probably vote Green or put in a write-in candidate. I have no wish to see that unprincipled woman in the White House.
Comments closed May 23, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
The same data could be read as an omen for the Hillary campaign: her lead depends on maintaining support among low-information, anti-war voters who aren't quite aware of Hillary's stand on Iraq. Just as we interpret Giuliani's current high standing among pro-lifers as a reason why he can't maintain his lead, we might read Hillary's current support among Dem doves as a temporary phenomenon.
Conversely, it may be the case that female voters are more pessimistic about Iraq than male voters, and that b/c Hillary does better among female voters, she also currently fares better among Iraq pessimists.
Without crosstabs, it's just not possible to read so much into one data point.
Also, ARG is really flaky...
Posted by Jon | May 10, 2007 12:09 AM