Poll: Americans optimistic about Hillary Clinton presidency (34%)

[sinkingfeeling]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/16/poll-americans-optimistic-about-hillary-clinton-presidency/?hpt=hp_t2

CNN) - She lost the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, but over a third of Americans said the U.S. would be better off now if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were president, according to a new poll.

The Bloomberg survey released Friday showed 34 percent of those questioned said America would be superior under a Hillary Clinton administration, while 47 percent said it would be about the same and 13 percent said it would be worse.

Clinton remains the most popular American political figure with nearly two-thirds of Americans holding a favorable view of the former first lady and New York senator. Half of the respondents felt the same way about President Barack Obama, who received the lowest job approval rating of his presidency, at 45 percent.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney received a 42 percent favorability rating while rivals Texas Gov. Perry and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas garnered 32 percent. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich received a 28 percent rating and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is still mulling a bid for the White House, came in at 26 percent.

[FLAprogressive]

1. Why don't people realize that we'd be seeing the same DLC policies....people are under this

impression that HRC is this huge "liberal"....maybe she is, since the definition of "liberal" is now anyone to the left of Ben Nelson......but she is no progressive.

[still_one]

4. I am not sure where this crap is coming from, but I find it interesting that a few days ago cheney

comes out and says Hillary should run against Obama, now this poll

In addition, you are absolutely correct, if Hillary was president, we would still be in three wars, and she would have mostly the same advisors that Obama had, that is, ex bill clinton advisors

[Coyote_Bandit]

12. As a political spectator

I would love to see that primary re-match.

And I'm not so sure it wouldn't be good for the party.

At the very least it would create some interest among those who are sick of our dsyfunctional politicians.

[newspeak]

17. why? same old, same old

Might as well stick with Obama if that's the choice. Another pro-corporate, "new democrat." Oh, on another thread someone mentioned Clinton created NAFTA-GATT. That trade treaty was in the works under poppy bush, Clinton and congress just passed it for poppy and the gang.

Clinton-Obama wouldn't even hit my excitement meter.

[Coyote_Bandit]

43. No offense intended but your excitement meter

isn't the least bit important in determining the outcome of the next Presidential election. That will likely be determined by a group of independent voters who may not much care who wins, whose lives have not improved during the Obama administration and who are hacked off at politicians from both parties.

Given the sorry state of our economy and our labor market and the anti-incumbent attitude of many voters a Hillary-Obama primary just might stir some interest. It wouldn't really matter who won. They are both Dems cut from the same cloth.

[Solomon]

41. Now that would only be fair if

it happened after Hillary served a term as
President while Obama was Secretary of State.

He would defeat her much bigger than he did in 2008. And there would be none of the nonsense which occurred in 2008 when the gross attempt was made to give to Hillary somehow anyway, after she had no mathematical chance at winning the thing. It was sickening to watch that.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. Obama said he would talk to Iran; Hillary said she'd attack it.

Obama claimed to not be DLC; everybody knew Hillary WAS DLC.

I'm very unhappy with Obama, but he was definitely the better choice at the time.

[Solomon]

42. He remains the best choice my friend.

Despite your disappointments. Speculate all you want in who, among the candidates, would have this gigantic mess all turned around, in two to three years. Have at it.

[truebrit71]

22. Bingo!!

...

[mod mom]

23. Maybe Carville's statements were timed to precede this meme

[Bandit]

26. She has dedicated almost her entire life for women's and childrens rights and protections.

I for one think she would be a fine President..I felt that way about Obama though until he actually became President...:shrug:

[Xipe Totec]

2. I bet Paris Hilton would get better ratings

and Val Kilmer.

Popularity contests. Bah.

[frazzled]

3. So you're saying 60% think it would be the same or worse.

What's the point of this counterfactual poll?

[dionysus]

5. some just can't let it go....

[ProSense]

6. More

Republican propaganda. Bloomberg:

<...>

While 34 percent say things would be better under a Clinton administration, almost half -- 47 percent -- say things would be about the same and 13 percent say worse.

<...>

Republicans are slightly more inclined than the national average to think the U.S. would be better off with Clinton running the country, with 39 percent saying so. A majority of Democrats -- 57 percent -- say things would be the same.

<...>

A plurality of Tea Party supporters -- 44 percent -- say the U.S. would be better off with Hillary Clinton as president, even though 59 percent of those respondents have an unfavorable impression of her.

“She’s a more stable person who gets results,” said Joseph Cherney, 67, a retired Republican automotive purchasing worker from Mineral Ridge, Ohio. “The president we have now isn’t much of a president because he really doesn’t do anything. He’s pompous and arrogant.”

<...>

[GSLevel9]

7. Well... She certainly couldn't be WORSE than Obama. nt

[HughBeaumont]

13. Translation:

“She’s a more white person who gets results,” said Joseph Cherney, 67, a retired Republican automotive purchasing worker from Mineral Ridge, Ohio. “The president we have now isn’t much of a president because he's a (insert racial slur of choice here). He’s (see previous).”

I used to live near Mineral Ridge. Trust me. Ohio's loaded with these vote-against-your-interests types, even in moderate-to-heavily blue areas.

[Donnachaidh]

8. of course, that would mean 66% are NOT optomistic about a Hillary presidency

But hey - whatever floats yer boat, right? :sarcasm:

[Pab Sungenis]

9. There would not have been a Hillary Clinton presidency either way.

One thing that gave Obama an edge in 2008 was that McCain had geared up to run against Clinton, and he would have pounded her mercilessly.

He didn't know how to react to Obama, and that gave Obama an edge not many Democratic candidates have been given since 1980: a chance to frame his own message and present himself to the voters without the filter of Republican views.

And honestly I can't say she would have governed any better, either. I tend to think her policies would have been even more conservative than Obama's.

[HughBeaumont]

27. Exactly. I don't get these half-PUMA people's logic that Hillary would have been any different.

More than a few people on DU, including myself, have proven she's even less of an economic progressive than her husband was. Then there's that whole IWR vote . . . :(

[Beacool]

31. Wrong.

Exit polls show that Hillary would have won by a larger margin because some of those who voted for McCain said that they would have voted for Hillary if she had been the Democratic candidate.

;)

[Pab Sungenis]

34. This is before

McCain and the RNC would have started their relentless barrage against her. Same thing could have been said for Kerry if he had lost the nomination and hadn't been swiftboated.

McCain didn't know how to destroy Obama; he wasn't prepared for it. That let Obama frame himself the way he wanted and that gave him the edge.

[defendandprotect]

10. Just what we need, more Koch Bros./DLC candidates -- how dumb are we???

[Broderick]

11. I love the sweet smell of vindication in

on a crisp clear cool morning.


J/K folks.

[seabeyond]

37. where would that be cause 34% doesnt do a hell of a lot of vindication. nt

[Broderick]

39. oh come on and laugh a little at the naysayers

sarcasm

[seabeyond]

40. ok. i like to laugh. i can do that. nt

[Kolesar]

14. Iraq War Resolution

She knew better.

[WI_DEM]

15. Your bragging about 34% who think it would be better?

That means 66% think it's would be worse or the same. Head to head with democratic primary voters I'd bet that Obama would defeat her again.

So, if you posted this to start up a revival of the 2008 elections--thanks you succeeded.

[sinkingfeeling]

20. I posted an article written by somebody else. It's a news story. That's what we do on DU.

[InvisibleTouch]

18. I'd love to see her run in 2016...

...but I think she has stated pretty definitively that she won't.

[joeybee12]

19. What amazes me is that she is the most popular political figure considering how she was ravaged

during Bill's presidency...you gotta love her resiliency, if not so much her politics.

[RaleighNCDUer]

44. And why is she 'the most popular political figure' today?

Because she is a Democrat in a Democratic administration (holding the Democreats) while pursuing the same Republican foreign policy of the past 30 years (holding the Republicans).

That 'popularity' would vanish in an instant if she ran for the presidency again.

[kenny blankenship]

21. I'll admit this: I think we'd have a fighter leading the Democratic Party if she had won

I was against her even running in the primary because A) I didn't want the Bill'n'Hillary'n'Monica & Kenneth Star Circus coming back to Washington, B) the Clintons, as Democratic Party insiders without rival, were way too close to Wall St. and cozy with corporate predators and C) the nepotism of a spouse trading on connection to a President for a Senate seat and then parlaying their stranglehold on the Party fundraising mechanisms into a Presidential nomination disgusted me.

Everything that Obama has done that disappointed me has been a surprise - OK not after a while, but when he was a candidate I didn't suspect that he would do these things. (Or if I suspected that he would, which I did, I accepted his invitation to HOPE that he would not - what choice besides hope did I have?) Every way that Obama has betrayed my hopes for a Democratic Administration - continuity with Bush policies instead of restoring pre-Bush government, continuing to defer to the power of the criminal elite on Wall St. and selling the people out to corporate power generally - is something I was already certain Clinton would do, back when they were contesting the nomination. She was the Devil I knew and didn't want any more of, and here was this new guy who was promising to be different. He looked like the only chance for a better future. But what an incompetent servile WUSS he has been!

The one key difference between H. Clinton and Obama, as I see our primary choice now in retrospect, is that Hillary Clinton knows that the Republicans are a "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" funded by millionaires and corporate combines, and they will try to undermine and destroy any Democratic President, no matter the cost to the country. She knows Republicans are the Enemy -implacable, ruthless, and dishonest- and that they have to be faced down and dealt with like an enemy. She knows because she lived through the worst they can do. The word "demonize" entered into common usage during the Clinton years, thanks to the right wing's ubiquitous and relentless campaign to destroy Hillary Clinton's public image; and yet she was hungry for a rematch. Once upon a time, in her youth, she was a Republican herself. In the 90s, the Republicans went after her and her husband, calling them every name normally ruled out of bounds: degenerates, Communist agents, murderers, rapist (applied to her husband), grafters, real estate frauds, Chinese stooges and traitors. They tried to remove her husband from office and mounted a decade long expedition through courtrooms across the country to put both Clintons in jail. If Hillary Clinton had any lingering illusions about the nature of the Republican Party, like those that doomed Barack Obama's Presidency, she had them burned away 15 years before her campaign for the Democratic nomination started. And that experience might have made all the difference.

While I am certain that under Clinton-44, Democratic policy in general would still look way too Republican to me, I think there would have been a far greater likelihood that the Democratic Party would have mounted an aggressive attack on the Republicans for their role in wrecking the country, starting from Day One. If there's one thing I can have faith in about Hillary, it's that she knows if you aren't on offense and trying to raze the opposing party to the ground, you will very shortly find yourself on defense with Republican Berserkers swarming in over the wire. No matter how large an advantage the Democrats start with, the tables WILL turn on them, if they don't press the attack to the utmost. And so they have.

[hifiguy]

24. Anyone who sat on the board of Wal-Mart

is just as much of a corporatist as Obama is. Which means that they are corporatist down to the bone. :eyes:

[krabigirl]

25. Lol. No thanks. She would be worse than Obama. We would be in 8 wars rather than 6.

Too hawkish for my liking.

[RebelOne]

35. Where do you get 6 wars?

There only 3 that I know of. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

[dionysus]

38. get it right buster, we're in fifty wars!

:P

[Blue_Tires]

28. Bullshit survey trolling -- Megan Fox would have gotten like 99.9 percent

and unless Fox or Clinton are running for president, then the survey is meaningless --but then I'm sure you already knew that...

[William769]

29. This is a moot point.

She will not be serving a Second Term as Secretary os State. I believe she will be retiring from political office at the end of this term. That does not mean she will be retiring from public view. It is my opinion that she will continue to work with President Clinton on their charities but politics for all intents and purposes is over for her.

[ThomWV]

30. That should show you how far out of touch CNN viewers are.

[JoePhilly]

32. Not. Happening.

[Beacool]

33. I knew this would be good.

Spin, spin like a top.

These people have to be (take a pick): a) PUMAs, b) racists, c) DLC, d) Republicans trying to cause mayhem, etc., etc., etc.

Well, there must be millions out there then, since Hillary has been the most popular politician in the country for quite a long time now.

It's not surprising to any of us who supported her. She would have been a fine president.

:D

[seabeyond]

36. 34% could be argued the republican voters???? what does this say, and so what. nt