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December 10, 2007
Trouble In Hillaryland?
Will Hillary Clinton be the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee or won't she? The national political press, which spent most of the last several months playing up her inevitability, seems to have decided it wants a primary race after all.
Stories have abounded over the last few weeks about the Obama campaign hitting its stride while Clinton has stumbled. Tightening polls have been spun as a sea change in the race. And over the weekend, Oprah Winfrey lent her considerable star power to further stoke the Obama-mania flames.
Today came the predictable story about tensions in the Clinton campaign, penned by Bloomberg's Al Hunt. This one includes the usual team internal strife, and most juicily, grousing from Hillary about Bill Clinton's recent boneheaded Iraq War statement, and Bubba's own anger at the campaign's missteps.
So what does it all mean? First off, we never believed HRC's large early leads in the polls were particularly meaningful. She has greater name ID than all the other candidates and residual good will left over from the Clinton presidency, which explains a big (but soft) early lead over her Democratic rivals.
As actual voting gets closer, however, the electorate begins paying more attention. They learn more about the other candidates in the race and are perhaps reminded of things about Mrs. Clinton they don't much like. In other words, such tightening of the race was a given, particularly with the press pushing it. After all, who's interested in reading and watching coverage of a race that's over before it begins?
In our judgment, the early primary state horseraces were always going to become at least somewhat competitive. And while Obama's surge should not be minimized, neither should it be overblown. Hillary Clinton still holds considerable advantages in the national primary contest, and it will take more than a few favorable polls to change that fact.
That said, we are glad things have gotten more competitive. Stay tuned!
Posted by houtopia at December 10, 2007 09:58 PM