CNN/Time Poll/ Hillary Rodham Clinton Top Contender in 2004

The reason Hillary is leading in the poll is easy to understand. Just look, at the competition. Can Hillary win? No! The GOP has painted her as a flaming liberal. That would assure her defeat in almost all the southern and western states and bible belt states.
Does she have the makings of a good president? Compared to Bush anyone even the local garbage collector would.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to prove that the other party is unfit to rule--and both commonly
suceed, and are right. H. L. Mencken

Man, the Dems need someone with heartland appeal or the 2004 election will split the country almost as decisively as the 2000 one did -

If you're in the East, or in a big city, or a member of a minority, you voted Democratic with some voting Green.

If you're in the middle of the country, or the South, or a small town or rural area, you voted Republican or for Buchanan (sorry, can't recall which was his party - Reform?).

These are generalizations, of course, but they bear up pretty well when you look at the figures. See: http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm

Phoenix, I can't understand how the CNN/Time poll could come up with those results. In my opinion, Hillary couldn't possibly get the nomination and the same for Joe Lieberman. I would certainly never vote for either one in a primary. Hillary is such a lightning rod for the right and Joe Lieberman might as well be a Republican with his voting record. Neither of them have appeal.

However, a CNN opinion poll cited the three most admired women in America - and Hillary Clinton is #1 (#2 is Laura Bush, #3 is Oprah Winfrey). So there seems to be some contradiction here. This poll said nothing about candidacy, but it does represent a more general feeling about Hillary. After all, the CNN is not noted for being strong on democratic views, although it presents both.

The first lady is usually an obligatory pick for #1.

Just intuitively, I feel like Hilary has the best chance at the presidency of any Democrate. I much prefer that doesn't come to pass, but I don't even see anyone else with the widespread recognition.

I think The Dems are currently in disarray, with neither clear message nor apparent candidate. Hillary carries far too much baggage to hoist herself on any National Bandwagon. They will disputatiously attrit their way to a candidate, likely one of little or no current expectation. The exercise will distract them from developing and effectively promoting any message of sufficient focus and appeal to carry their eventual candidate. Unless, of course, Bush The Younger manages to shoot himself out of the saddle ... a not inconceivable possibility.



timber.

Timber:

Disarray ... DISARRAY ??? What makes you think that We give disarray a whole new definition.

Tell me exactly WHAT baggage Hilary carries. It sure isn't her fault that Bill was a pig! She's been a target of the right because her name is Clinton, but I'm not sure of any personal baggage she;s carrying. I frankly really like a Clinton-Pelosi Ticket.

I think it's time for the women to run things for a while. Get some of the testorone out of the decision making arm of the government! Get some thinking into the decision process to replace the HooHaa Testoserone, "we're gonna beat you up if you don't obey us" attitude. I think the US is making more enemies right now than it can handle. I think the Republican Administration is assuring the fact that we have lots of people who want to nuke our cities! That way, we continue to need the Republicans "to protect us" so we can come out from under our beds. Good election material, isn't it. It worked in 2002.

Anon

This very perception of disarray, which the media loves to report on, may actually turn out to be an advantage. After all, the republicans don't seem to be arrayed so well, whereas the dems have an opportunity to rise from the ashes. I don't like Hillary as a candidate right now. The so-called baggage she supposedly carries was not enough to keep her from a hotly contested win in upstate New York, which had been a republican bastion, and which Guiliani was sure he'd win. Nor, apparently, is it big enough to keep her from getting this "most admired" ahead of Laura Bush. As a matter of fact, I'm beginning to doubt this whole baggage story anyway. If so much exists, how come Bill is the most requested speaker not only in other parts of the world, but here, too? Something doesn't fit together.

All politicians are toting around baggage that would give Arnold Swartzeneggar a hernia. If they are not carrying enough, the opposing side makes sure they can outdo Samsonite in manufacturing baggage. Let those of us who have no baggage cast the first suitcase.

I certainly hope Hillary runs because it would be pleasant to see her soundly beaten and repudiated.

These early polls don't tell us much and many things will change and unfold in the next 18 months to alter the situation. Barring some major blunder or setback in the Bush administration, I believe it is most unlikely that Hillary will run. First the odds will not be with her. Second the passage of time may dull the memories of her husband's venality, and will giver her the opportunity to create some political position for herself to counter her health care fiasco of 1993. Her best bet is likely in 2008.

Yup.



timber

The health care fiasco ...

explain how it was a fiasco ...

I would like to know what was wrong with it other than the Republicans hated it!

Anon

anon: what was wrong with it is that the republicans didn't want it, which seems to indicate it was most likely a good idea.

Polls now reflect mood rather than any decisive indication of who will be the candidate. I don't believe Hillary has developed a base of support within her own party and it will take more than four years if she earnestly wants to make a bid for any higher office. She's now given enough media coverage to assist her in those aspirations but politics is like the weather -- we can all read about what the weather is suppose to be like and then feign shock when it's stormy instead of clear (and there's more technology available to predict the weather!)

I believe, if elections were held today, she wouldn't be able to pullit off, but she is heading in the right direction. She needs to build on her public resume`, and become more than Bill's wife.* Trying to champion unemployment checks extensions, is a good start. She should also continue to feign disinterest, so as to keep down the "frontrunner scrutiny".

...*In fourteen months, I don't believe this will be the negative one might think. As Bill's indescetions fade, The state of the economy, then and now, will be more of a impression maker. Not to mention the charm, and wit of Bill, as opposed to the mean-spiritness, and dull-wit of W.

Well for starters it was the creation of Ira Magaziner and 2000 government bureaucrats. It would have established a Byzantine network of regional HMOs with monopolistic power and have left individual consumers with very little choice for their medical coverage or services. Just the sort of central planning and resource allocation that achieved such economic wonders for the former Soviet Union. Moreover, just the sort of entity the Democrats are proposing to protect us from in their "Patient's Bill of Rights" legislation.

Interesting methodology on the part of socialist minded Democrats. First we take control of the markets that serve you "to protect you from their greed" , and second we establish a system of rationing (of course manged by us) to equitably distribute the shortages produced by step #1; and third we enact a "Patients Bill of Rights" (also managed by our bureaucrats - and our friendly tort lawyers) to protect you from the bureaucratic structures enacted in step #2. What will come next ??

Here, I agree with gerogeob1 -- Hillary's plan was too hastily constructed and although the motives were magnanimous, the results would have been another clunky buraucracy working against itself. Certainly there was something learned here out of the failure of the bill (and you could wallpaper the Grand Canyon with failed bills from both sides of the aisle) and hopefully an intelligent politician will come along who will be able to solve what now appears to be unsolvable. Allowing the self-employed to deduct health care costs from their taxes was a good start (of course, I liked that one! . The miscalculation was that such sweeping legislation at that time was destined to flop and score a lot of political minus points, which makes me wonder how can political advisors go so far off track?

And besides that, it didn't seem to be written in English. But what we have now is falling and failing on all counts. Managed care, after its initial start, seemed to be managing care primarily in the direction of profit v loss. Which is how a business should be run, but should it apply to areas so critical to one's being? Isn't that an altogether different area?

Privatization works very well in some places. In New Jersey, the privatization of the Motor Bureau led to such disasters, that there was a public (and some political) clamor to put it back under regulatory control. And that only had to do with wheeled vehicles.

I don't think Hillary is ready yet, nor is the country ready for the whole idea. But the very thought sure does scare a lot of her opposition.