( – promoted by hotflash)
Hillary Clinton is squashing the other Democratic nominees in the polls. She’s ahead of Obama anywhere from 15-18 points and has triple Edwards’s numbers.
Many state political leaders, regardless of what they may personally think of Clinton’s stands on the issues, get the willies when they consider the consequences for their own state of a Hillary ticket. She’s a lightning rod, the kind of candidate who might give dejected Republicans a reason not to stay home on election day. In a toss-up state like ours, that’s reason to worry.
Politics Blog quotes an AP article:
In more than 40 interviews, Democratic candidates, consultants and party chairs from every region pointed to internal polls that give Clinton strikingly high unfavorable ratings in places with key congressional and state races.
“I’m not sure it would be fatal in Indiana, but she would be a drag” on many candidates, said Democratic state Rep. Dave Crooks of Washington, Ind.
Many Missouri Democrats would be bobbing their heads in agreement as far as how that ticket could play out here. Quite a few of them, including former Party Chairman Roger Wilson, think that Kerry’s lack of commitment to Missouri in ’04 cost Claire the governor’s race. And in fact, McCaskill may have opted to run for the Senate rather than take on Blunt again because she was concerned about a ticket with Hillary at the top.
But here’s the upside, according to Politics Blog:
One thing to note: Clinton is very likely capable of raising lots of money and building a disciplined organization for a general election campaign. Those two factors could make it easy for Clinton to invest money into a borderline toss-up state like Missouri.
And besides her money and organization, Hillary still has the magic weapon: Bill.
If Matt “baby” Blunt’s miserable record as governor didn’t exist I might take pause.
Remember, the right wingnout and their lazy “old” media enablers have been playing one note on Hillary for years – when the public sees the dissonance between that construction and the reality (and they will), the negatives of the right and their media will go up. We can all point to dubya for that inoculation – nothing fails like failure. People crave competence after six and a half years of complete failure. Look at the “right direction, wrong track” numbers in the polls – when the republican candidates for president can only offer “more of the same” it doesn’t bode well for any of them against any of the Democratic Party candidates.
In Missouri we can play the same refrain for “baby” Blunt – nothing fails like failure. When one of the republican party’s most talented politicians switches parties you’ve got to know that things ain’t right with their agenda and party.
Oh, the republicans will spend money in Missouri all right – and they’ll have plenty of it. This time the public isn’t happy with their record. That happens when you run campaigns on wedge issues and fringe ideology and don’t care or bother to actually learn how to govern. We’ll have the advantage no matter who is running at the top of the ticket.
Don’t I know it that Republicans are in sad shape almost everywhere, but they’ve got a firm hold on our legislature and are likely to keep it next year. This isn’t a blue state, no matter how corrupt, incompetent, heartless and pandering the Republicans are. We’re purple at best, and we’ll need every advantage we can find to bleed the red out of our state.
I’m not speaking in a vacuum. I am taking account of the environment here, Michael. And I recall, though I can’t find it now, an account by a Democratic pollster in New Hampshire last year who was startled at the reaction he got about Hillary when he conducted focus groups there. Among Democrats, he found that almost half of them were vehement in their dislike of her, using words like “corporate whore” and “bitch”. He said he’d never encountered anything like it. That was among Democrats. Think how much stronger the reaction is among Republicans.
It’s what effect she will have on Missouri races.
This post and the comments here sound so Missouri. How often have MO Dems start backing away from the national party nominee before the selection is made. Is it because we have fallen for the neocon talking points along with the pin heads? Folks, this year we need to find the spine to stand up for the Party and its nominee and not let the right wing of the Republican dictate what the public will accept and reject.
If you look around you will see that everybody in the nation and Missouri wishes for change. They have a desire for progressive solutions to our problems. The public is WAY ahead on the issues – the traditional press is so deeply bound up with their corporate owners’ policies that they will never report what we want or believe. Thank heaven for the “tubes”.
Support your favorite in the primaries, then stand up and support the Party in the general. No more fear. No more centerist mumbo jumbo. We need a Democrat to lead us in Washington and Jefferson City. Specifically Democrats that won’t compromise with the neocon bullies on substance.