Reply #74: As to the polling, you are wrong [View All]

[karynnj]

There are plenty of polls placing her above 40% (which means she was between 40 and 50 percent. Looking at most of 2005 and 2006 the best estimate is that she was slightly above 40 percent.

As to your comparisons, I said an OPEN race. Although I should have said Democrat because the Republican dynamics are different, your examples are wrong. 2005 and 2006 would be equivalent to 1997 and 1998 for the 2000 race - that was before Bush became the favorite - http://pollingreport.com/wh2rep.htm GHWB does not count because he was the sitting VP as was Gore. They were not truly open. Hart was the clear frontrunner for 1988 (not 1987), but he did not dominate the field to anywhere near the same level. Mondale was not the initial frontrunner in 1984, Kennedy was until he said he was not running. http://pollingreport.com/wh2rep.htm He never dominated to the degree Hillary did.

Nowhere did I say that Bill Clinton was why she had those poll numbers, but the fact is that being Mrs Bill Clinton did play a role.
What exactly were Hillary's Senate accomplishments? She was a very junior Senator, who to my knowledge really did not lead on anything. At one point, SCHIP was what she cited was her biggest accomplishment - but her role, which was important, was that she persuaded Bill Clinton to include funding in the budget for it. That was a Ted Kennedy/Orrin Hatch bill that they got through a Senate with 55 Republicans, their bill was a modified version of a Kerry/Kennedy bill from the previous year that was based on an existing MA program. This makes it hard to say that Bill Clinton had nothing to do with it.

Clinton had advantages beyond those Hart had - she had the unqualified support of Bill Clinton and substantial party support. Until 2008, Obama had very little party support - with only Durbin endorsing him. (Kerry offered his support in late 2007 and offered to let Obama chose where and when he would give it) The fact is the CW was that she was the inevitable candidate.

The fact is many people have their own ideas of the best President we never had. Everyone is welcome to their opinion. I would put both Kerry, Robert Kennedy, Hart, and Gore ahead of Clinton. (If I had to pick just one - it would have been RFK, because he would have ended the Vietnam War before almost half of those killed would have died. RFK with the Democratic Congress he had could have then done things like expand healthcare. In addition, think of all the evil people rooted in the Nixon era, who might never have seen power! Second would be Kerry, would have had the dysfunctional 109th Congress, but who could have changed American foreign policy in ways he spoke of since his days at Yale.