Clinton's 'discipline' has her close to locking up the nomination

[wyldwolf]

One of the nation's leading authorities on political trends and U.S. elections likes what he sees in the early days of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign for president.

Charlie Cook, publisher of the Cook Political Report, said Clinton has the "best organized" presidential campaign he has seen since Richard Nixon won re-election in a landslide in 1972.

"On the Democratic side, I think it's going to be a real challenge for any other candidate to knock out Hillary Clinton," Cook told a small group of journalists Monday at the National Press Foundation in Washington.

He called New York's junior senator a "disciplined campaigner" who has worked with "Prussian-like efficiency" in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Cook said he traveled to New Hampshire and was impressed after watching Clinton interact with voters and deliver her stump speech. He said the senator has every detail covered and leaves nothing to chance, which is why some people criticize her for coming across as calculating and impersonal.

"Does she give up spontaneity? Yes. But my guess is she'll come up with a plan to deal with spontaneity," Cook said.

In polls, Clinton on average now runs ahead of each of the major Republican candidates, he said.

"What we're seeing is President Bush and Iraq as sort of a wet blanket all over his party," Cook said, but he stopped short of saying that a Democrat will win the White House from Republicans in 2008.

"Each of the Democrats has their own weaknesses and as a result will probably keep the election pretty close," Cook said.

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