Hillary Clinton has great name recognition, but…
…what is she being recognized for?
I think Megan McArdle may be onto something when she writes:
By allowing Clinton to take the lion’s share of the fundraising dollars and the media attention, the party has left itself without a plausible alternative candidate. That seemed dandy as long as she was easily trouncing Republicans in polls. But those polls were always going to narrow, because the early polls were basically measuring whether people recognized the candidate’s name, not whether they were going to vote for her more than a year hence. As the GOP race sorts out, and the front-runners achieve more public awareness, you’re going to see our highly partisan electorate lock into much narrower margins.
Moreover, Clinton will have less room to improve her margins than whoever the Republican is.
I think it matters a great deal which candidate the Republicans nominate, and how effectively the MSM and Democrats can cast that person as a villain. It that person is successfully demonized, many people would then go with the villain they know, Hillary.
Our nominee matters, but not as much as some think. I don’t believe only a near-perfect candidate can defeat Hillary. In fact, I think any of the frontrunners except Jeb can do it.
And boy oh boy is the Left going to be upset when Hillary’s deleted and lost emails are leaked *after* she is nominated.
Hillary Clinton must be defeated.
Carthage must be destroyed.
Wow — only two comments so far on this thread, and it’s already past 9:00 pm Eastern Time.
I don’t think it’s entirely because it’s the weekend. I think our readers here, like many across the fruited plain who are not reeaders here, are succumbing to Hillary! fatigue.
As Dame Karen Carpenter was wont to croon, “We’ve Only Just Begun”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VQX2Xn7tI
readers
When I think of the MSM – remember when we used to think of them as dispensing news? – and it’s treatment of non-Democrat candidates I think of the example of John McCain.
He was the media darling as long as he was Maverick, gumming up the works of whatever Republicans were trying to do, forming gangs of one sort or another or being a holdout.
Then, when he seemed likely to be the Republican nominee, he was suddenly accused, tried, and convicted on the front pages of the New York Times, on the basis of nothing other than anonymous gossip, of having a sleazy affair with a lobbyist.
The Democrats could resurrect Adolf Eichman and in the MSM he would become a flawed, but ultimately preferable choice to whoever the Republicans decided to run.
Nolan
Hillary could chainsaw a basket of kittens at halftime of the Super Bowl and she would still poll at 47%.
Surely that would only net a 45%.
Megan McArdle seems to be remarkably clear-headed, fair-minded and both smart and well-informed. How then is it possible that 1) she voted for Obama at least once — in 2008; I’m not sure about 2012 — and 2) she can still write, after everything that has come out about Hillary Clinton in the past few months, not to mention the many years before that — “It isn’t that I particularly dislike her; I don’t” ?
Cornhead, 8:46 am — “Hillary could chainsaw a basket of kittens at halftime of the Super Bowl and she would still poll at 47%.”
. . . and I’ll betcha that’s roughly the same 47 percent to whom Mitt Romney was referring back in 2012 . . . remember that incident? . . . wasn’t he pretty reasonable writing off those dudes??
At least I think so.
Thing is, ya just can’t say some things, even (especially!) when they’re obvious truths.