Once again it’s time for you, our devoted DU readers, to be heard, to tell us what you think.

If the primary were held today and you would not be voting for a Republican and assuming Hillary runs in ’08, would you vote for her? If not, why and whom would you like to be the Demo candidate instead? Would you rather vote Republican than vote for Hillary?

Poll: 46 percent view Clinton unfavorably

WASHINGTON (UPI) — Possible 2008 U.S. presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has more support outside his party than Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., an ABC poll says.

Some 59 percent of 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed in March had a favorable opinion of McCain while 52 percent had a favorable opinion of Clinton. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

On the flip side, 46 percent had an unfavorable view of Clinton while just 29 percent had a negative view of McCain, the poll concludes. Clinton’s strongly unfavorable rating of 33 percent was triple McCain’s rate of 11 percent.

Clinton had stronger support within the Democratic Party than McCain did among Republicans, but he had stronger support across party lines.

Nearly three-quarters of conservative Republicans rated Clinton unfavorably, the ABC poll concludes. In contrast, 60 percent of liberal Democrats gave McCain a favorable rating.



  1. RTaylor says:

    The Democratic party has killed itself with diversity. White middle class Christian heterosexuals, with children, is who still elects Presidents in this country. Many of those now looks at the Democratic party as a party of minority special interests and left wing odd balls who are there because they need a platform that appears legitimate. A moderate Republican will blow Clinton out the water, especially if he’s not shy in his criticism of Bushes failings. The Democrats need unity and a Cinderella to show up at the ball. That ain’t Hillary.

  2. david says:

    her main problem is the “elitism” that she exudes. People resent elistism although it really is the way God made us. The trick is not to look down with people with disdain but rather with respect, compassion and understanding. What many on the Left fail to understand is that they would not have been where they are at, in terms of knowledge and power, if it weren’t for the ordinary citizens that support the hierarchal structure. When the Left ridicules the Right they are demeaning the foundation where they stand. One example of Hillary gave her away. It was during Bush’s speech to Congress a couple of weeks ago. He had said something which I don’t remember, but the camera zoomed in on Hillary’s facial reaction. Her face gave her away. She made this “asshole, liar, you’re an idiot if you think I’m gonna fall for that” expression. She’s gotta control her negative reactions.If she ran against McCain or Guiliani, I may not vote Democratic. One person that I would vote for without hesitation is New York City’s current mayor: Michael Bloomberg. Right now he has a 75% approval rating. He’s a great guy. He posed for a picture with my kid, and I’ve run into him a couple of times. One time he smiled at me as he radiated Light. I think he comes closest to an Enlightened human being on this planet.

    Michael Bloomberg for President of The United States of America ’12

  3. jasontheodd says:

    I don’t want another damn Republican in office. Please find a Democrat (or independent) that can actually win….pretty please.

  4. Dan says:

    Now I’m not a one issue man but its hard to vote for Clinton because of her stance on Video game Cencorship. What realy makes me sick about it is the only reason shes going after video games is so she can look more conservative then she realy is. I will vote for Hillary if the republicans don’t back a good canidate (Pretty much McCain is the only good canidate I can see). Im more concerned with getting Bush and his cronies out of the Whitehouse.

  5. I would personally like to see NM Governer Richardson run. I dont live in NM but have looked at the state condition because I may relocate there, and it seem he’s doing great job. My experience with him was as my “super-boss” while working for DOE lab’. Very reasonable time of management it was…
    I am personally concerned about the typical EFF issues and Hilary, would bet that her stance would be in opposition to EFF most of the time. These issues will affect us at least as much as economy/war presently at hand. But she has some winning power: just see how quickly she have established herself here in NY; many women votes will go to her, even over “party lines”. But would that be enough? I personaly do not think so.

  6. Me says:

    Would-be Empress Hillarius is actually the Antichrist.

    I can’t imagine voting for any Democrat since they all seem to want to raise taxes at one time or another. There is nothing happening anywhere on Earth that is so important that my total tax bill needs to increase to deal with it. Period.

    Democrats call themselves progressives, but they’re really regressives, They always want us to cut back. Drive smaller cars, get a smaller house, use mass transit, less, less, less. My answer is NO. I want more, more, more. The Dems want to reserve the truly good lifestyle for the intellectual elites their leaders think they themselves are.

    That being said, Other than finally blowing the hell out of Iraq, I’m not a huge Bush fan either and I’m not sure who I would vote for coming out of the Republican party either. I’ve mostly been a Bush supporter only because, had Gore or Kerry gotten in, Earth would no longer be a place worth living by now.

    The biggest problem is that our whole media driven system pretty much prevent s the best candidates from running or getting past primaries. Who would want to go through the scrutiny that candidates go through unrelated to the office they’re running for?

    I also think you need to be a little cracked to want to be President. Look at before and after pictures of the last 10 Presidents. Every one of them looks 25 years older at the end of their terms. I’m not sure I’d want the job.

    I Want:
    – more limits on abortion but not an outright ban
    – more guns
    – bigger SUVs, bugger roads, bigger houses
    – religious types NOT telling me what my morality is supposed to be.

    Neither party gives me what I want so I’m screwed. And since we’re all going to die from global warming anyway, I try not to worry about it, and just have a beer and relax.

  7. Todd says:

    I think you’re all avoiding the obvious. First and foremost, conservative people would never… ever in a hundred million years put in enough votes to put a woman into office. Sad but true. Mother Theresa could come along and run, and she would still lose a close one to someone with half the IQ of Bush (wow that’s pretty low, like a 4 or something?). Same goes for minorities, sad but true which probably explains why Lieberman didn’t win. It’s so hard to put someone whose heritage has never seen precidency before (like JFK who was catholic, and that took how long since we had presidents?). I hate it, because i think there would be some genius presidents from anywhere, but I don’t see them making it with conservative people around.

  8. Eric says:

    “I think you’re all avoiding the obvious. First and foremost, conservative people would never… ever in a hundred million years put in enough votes to put a woman into office.”

    WRONG. Conservative people would never put in enough votes to put a LIBERAL woman in office.

    But it isn’t only conservatives who vote in elections is it?

    Remember, her husband Billyboy never got to 50%( of popular vote ) in either election… And Bill was most definately NOT liked by conservatives…

  9. As a conservative, I don’t underestimate her. Her husband was a lying, draft dodging abuser of women, but that didn’t stop him from getting elected. Whatever her faults, I doubt if they’re worse than her husband. As well, she’s arguably a better overall candidate than Kerry and he got more votes (numerically) than either Mr. Clinton or Gore.

  10. Me says:

    Former Clinton friend Dick Morris has a book out about how to beat Hillarius. He suggests putting Condoleeza Rice against her. Wouldn’t that make for entertainment?

  11. Frank Baird says:

    It’s my personal opinion that the Gina Davis show “Commander In Chief” is Hollywood’s way of preparing the public to accept a woman president, namely Hillary.

    Now what if the first season of 24 were trying to prepare the public for a black president?

    Then what if what they really did was prepare the public for Condi to become president? The irony would be thicker than lead.

    Personally, I rather doubt Hillary could even get the nomination. She is simply too polarizing. However, she might get concessions and leverage from the DNC by going for it, just like Jessee Jackson used to do.

    On the other hand, I think the next election is the Dems’ to loose. So many people are upset with Bush, I think anyone associated with him will be too tainted to win, except maybe Condi. It will have to be someone who is clearly differentiated from Bush, like McCain, for the Repubs to win.

  12. Pat says:

    My answer is NO. I want more, more, more.

    Me, spoken like a true Republican. Bush will be proud of you.

  13. JT says:

    I would vote for her. I’m not up on all her issues, but a few years ago she had some good points. I can’t imagine anyone voting for someone that Bush supports. Of course I didn’t think the public would re-elect him either. So, what do I know.

  14. rob says:

    “I would vote for her. I’m not up on all her issues, but a few years ago she had some good points”

    See thats the problem her points/views have changed once a week in the past few years, I think she is worse than Kerry was in that respect!

  15. Kdnix says:

    Ok ladies get ready to bash me!!! Not sure a woman should be elected president!! Hilary or Condi. Thanks to so called womens rights…you know dressing like a whore and wondering why men are staring when they have no right to stare even though your hanging out all over the place (now called sexual harrasement)..Somewhere in there the Hillarys of the world made it ok for women to not have to take responsibilty for their actions because it is “their right”. Their right to look like hookers get knocked up and kill their babies. So thank you Hillary for paving the way for my young girls. Thank you for showing them that owning up to their mistakes and taking responsibility for their actions is of great importance. I wouldnt vote for her if she was the only one running. Not that I think Bush has done the best job…but at least I know he will stay true to his views. I am a woman who isnt particularly religious. So the dont be quick to sterotype me. Hillary isnt hated just by right wing Holy rollers that are men. Some of us women who arent religous or extremists could do with out her!!!!!! And personally do without liberals all together.

  16. david says:

    Me, one thing I realized late in life is that the world we live in is not a uni-reality world. I made that mistake. We live in a world where there are literally 6 billion realities. Sure, there are realities that are similar which are called cultures, but there are nuances that make your experience totally yours. “Reality” has stages that everyone must go through, without exception. Everyone starts at level 1. As we age we go through levels. The highest stage attainable is that of God Consciousness (level 10). Most people in the world today (70%) are at level 4/5 or lower. In more basic terms people go through different views: egocentric, ethnocentric and then worldcentric. 85% of the world are at ego/ethnocentric. An excellent book to explain this is “Spiral Dynamics” by Beck and Cowan.It will give you an understanding that you could never learn in school.

  17. david says:

    Kdnix, only a man is qualified to be president. If you look at women who have high leadership roles in our government you will always see a woman in physical form, but their mind is that of man.I agree, Hillary is not man enough to be President.

  18. James Hill says:

    Polls like this are pointless.

    Why? Because the 30% of this country that decides elections, those that don’t affiliate themselves with a party or a political ideology, need two people to pick from, not one.

    I consider myself to have conservative leanings, but differ with the right on certain issues. Regardless, me voting for Hillary is not out of the question: It just depends who she’s up against.

    After all, putting a bitch in the oval office isn’t a bad idea.

  19. Chris Pennell says:

    By ’98 I think you mean ’08 ?

  20. Shawn says:

    Whether it be Hillary “Video Games Should Be Outlawed!” Clinton or some other democrat lite I’ll be voting Green until the dems get a real liberal to run.

  21. Dave Drews says:

    Chris Pennell – Thanks for spotting that! Serves me right for posting something just after waking up!

  22. Me says:

    One thing you have to ask youself is “can this person be trusted to actually use a nuclear weapon on someone if were necessary to preserve the American standard of living?”

    I don’t think Hillarius would. Don’t know about Condi. McCain would but I disagree with him on other things (although protecting America as it is now is first priority).

    It’s hard to predict who will actually run. The time might be ripe for a strong independent or 3rd party candidate.

  23. david says:

    “can this person be trusted to actually use a nuclear weapon on someone if were necessary to preserve the American standard of living?”

    yeah, blow up a million people, but don’t take away my M-TV.

  24. bac says:

    Just about anyone would be better than a Republocrat or Demoblican. Democrats and Republicans are the same anymore. The next President will have to decide whether to keep cruising toward financial meltdown or the unthinkable, raising taxes and cut spending.

  25. Chris Pennell says:

    I’m not a grammer/spelling police type person, it just took me a few reads to get it, that it diddn’t actually mean ’98.
    By the way, Dvorak, your TWiT plugs got me into reading your blog, so that’s at least one reader it has attracted.

  26. Greg says:

    So many things to respond to, so little time. My head is going to explode!

    RTaylor #1: The Democratic party did not “kill itself with diversity,” although they’re certainly on a losing streak right now. Bush beat Kerry 50.7% to 48.2% in the popular vote. So despite what the electoral map looks like, 48% sided with us even with a, shall we say, less than ideal candidate.

    David #2: That facial reaction is pure projection. It shows many people’s inherent dislike of Hillary color their perceptions of what she actually does. I see people on the left do this to people as well and it’s maddening.

    Where is this elitism on the left? This is a great Republican narrative, that they’re the ordinary people and the left is these elitists. How come when we take a position on cultural issues we’re elitist and demeaning your values, but when you take a cultural position it’s not?

    Wayne #3: Why does the left think with their emotions and not their head? I know you said Hillary in particular but that’s another Republican fantasy. Apparently only their ideas are rational so ours must be emotional, even though it’s their talking heads that are more likely to be yelling on TV when challenged.

    “Socialized medicine” is not scary, it’s done in most other first world countries, and it costs them literally half per person compared to what we’re paying. If anything our current system is a competitive disadvantage for our companies.

    Legislate what we can and cannot eat. More stereotypes instead of an actual understanding of what the other side wants.

    Me #8: So the fact that we’re spending more money than we actually have, in part because of the tax cuts, isn’t a problem? I’d hate to see your credit card bills. We have the largest deficit in history, and places like China are already starting to get hesitant about continuing to buy our debt. It wouldn’t take much from our big creditors to royally fuck our economy, and it will definitely affect you personally. It doesn’t even have to be something explicitly malicious, it could just be no longer buying our debt or deemphasizing the dollar. Everyone’s playing nice for now but this can’t go on into perpetuity. We need a grown up in charge of the money, no matter which party their from, and that does mean at least some tax increase. We had higher taxes under Clinton and the economy did better than it’s doing now. Plenty of conservatives call Bush’s handling of this atrocious.

    I dealt with the elitism remarks already in my other responses.

    Todd #9: That’s not true. There’s been talk for many years about Colin Powell running and how well he would do, he just doesn’t want to. There was talk about Liddy Dole once, although her star has faded. Now it’s Condi Rice. Although she wouldn’t be the dream candidate they think she would be (everyone looks good before they’re roughed up in a campaign, and she’s never been. There’s plenty of ammo to use against her. I guess this could apply to Colin Powell too.) I do think they’re willing to run a minority or a woman, they just haven’t yet.

    Steve #10: Regardless of whether that’s fair (and I’m not saying it isn’t) at this point I’d prefer someone who follows opinion polls to Bush. I want a pricipled leader too, but I’d take a mushy person over someone whose principles are way out of whack with mine.

    Steve #14: If Rice would beat Hillary, it would be for anti-Hillary sentiment more than anything else. People always talk about blacks moving over to the right, be it for gay marriage or national security or whatever, but it’s never happened. Black support for Bush is ridiculously low right now. Saying they’d support Condi because she’s black doesn’t give them much credit. Clarence Thomas isn’t exactly a black hero. Alberto Gonzales isn’t a hero of hispanics. She’d have to have good positions too, positions that won’t endear her to the right. If she doesn’t run as a moderate, her being black won’t help her much if there’s a good Democrat she’s running against.

    Also see my other comments about her never being roughed up yet.

    Kdnix #19: Wow.

    David #21: Wow again. Let’s replace sexism with pseudo-sexism to make it more acceptable.

    James #22: These polls are also pointless because they’re only good for people with near perfect name recognition. If you want a vague sense of how Hillary, Kerry, and McCain will do relative to each other they’re okay, but these may not even be the big players come 2008. This early on Lieberman was supposed to be the big shot in the Democratic primary, and he was an also-ran by the end of it. No one heard of Dean before, and he almost won it. There will be plenty of people who are no-names now who will probably figure heavily into the race, and there’s no way to poll on them because of it.

    Me #27: Is the standard for using nuclear weapons so low that it’s just “standard of living” now? Maybe I’m just reading that phrase differently than you intended it.

  27. Greg says:

    As for the original point of this post, I wouldn’t vote for Hillary in the primary. I would vote for her against a Republican in the presidential election unless she’s against someone I can really consider, like McCain or Giuliani. I don’t know how I would vote in that situation, I’d have to really compare them.

    Right now I like Russ Feingold and Mark Warner, but support for both is admittedly vague. They just keep popping up in the news and I always like the reason when they do. Russ is very principled and Mark can win and be popular in a red state without selling out Democratic values. There are other good people who aren’t running, like Govenor Schweitzer of Montana and of course Barack Obama. I can’t point out specifics on each one of them because I haven’t been paying serious attention, being it’s so far away. When it actually comes down to the primaries you can bet I’ll know them all and have good reasons for supporting whoever I do.

  28. Matt Toto says:

    Hilary is too polarizing of a figure for the dems to win in ’08. I’m not expecting a solid Democratic candidate until 2012. That’s when this country will see it’s first African-American president. His name is Barack Obama. Hopefully the republicans send McCain in ’08 b/c I’d vote for him otherwise I may not vote in ’08, maybe just write myself in. But I’m really holding out for Obama in ’12!

  29. Gregory says:

    I’m really trying hard to work out if “me” is trolling, or actually believes the incredibly bigoted selfish crap that they’re spouting.

    Either a funny spoof, or really scary….

  30. Thomas says:

    I think the Democratic primaries will be very telling as they are generally far more caustic and play much more to the core of their respective party. I think that in this light, Hillary has a very good shot at winning the primaries as she is tough and already liberal so it plays to her strengths. However, when she hits the general election, I don’t see her winning any red states.

    I think if the Republicans put up someone reasonable and relatively non-polarizing, they’ll win in a landslide. Whether they are capable of doing that is yet to be seen.


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