How Hillary could tank

[BeyondGeography]

From hubby Bill's uncharted role to the Karl Rove factor to her hawkish voting record, the top 10 reasons why Clinton could take a fatal dive in the '08 race.
By Walter Shapiro

...1) When bad things happen to good candidates
Since James Monroe's "Era of Good Feeling" romp to reelection in 1820, front-runners have all endured a week, a month or an eternity when the media mood shifts and the polls plummet. Despite a few notes of skepticism in the spring when Barack Obama first displayed his fundraising prowess, Clinton has yet to go through even a single bad-hair day...

2) Political calendar choler
The order of the early caucuses and primaries can set Clinton up for a string of stinging setbacks. Her weakest state, at the moment, is Iowa where the opening-gun caucuses play a disproportionate role in shaping the contours of the contest. Clinton is locked in a three-way battle with Edwards and Obama in this state of notorious late-deciders who can stampede away from the favorite in, well, a New York minute...

3) The Bill comes due
The wild-card factor in 2008 is the most important political spouse in American history. Bill Clinton has bequeathed his wife experience by association and has revived talk of the "Buy One, Get One Free" deal originally offered the voters in 1992. But the ex-president in the past has also (how can we put this delicately?) displayed a predilection for creating soap-opera moments unrelated to his policy-wonk side...

4) Some other candidate gets his act together
"Barack Obama, please call your office. Your charisma has been located..."

5) A cautionary tale
Perhaps the emblematic moment for Hillary Clinton came at the end of the Dartmouth debate late last month when she could not even offer a straight answer about whom she would root for in the wildly improbable situation that her beloved Chicago Cubs played her adopted New York Yankees in the World Series. The higher Clinton rises in the polls, the more she avoids uttering anything besides perfectly constructed paragraphs of poll-tested mush. On her recent swing through New Hampshire, she offered a stirring portrait in amiable inaccessibility...

6) Hillary the hawk or "I ran straight to the center"
As the only Democratic presidential candidate to vote for the Senate resolution declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guard to be a "terrorist organization," Clinton revived suspicions that she may be the most hawkish, er, centrist Democrat in the race. The New York senator had successfully joined the Democratic consensus against the Iraqi misadventure, but her cover-her-right-flank vote on Iran may yet prove a problem with antiwar voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. There is a window of vulnerability for any presidential candidate in embarking on a general-election strategy before winning the primaries.

7) The anti-royalist rebellion
Although Clinton has deflected this question in several debates, there is a lingering uneasiness about the White House being reserved for just the Bush and Clinton families for 24 years. Voters could have banana-republic problems (not the clothing store) with living in a country where the Oval Office is reserved solely for the spouses and children of presidents.

8) The Karl Rove factor
Democratic voters may wonder why Rove and Rudy Giuliani have been boosting Clinton as the all-but-certain Democratic nominee. Maybe Karl and Rudy just possess a shrewd understanding of the inner workings of the rival political party. Or maybe they are secretly salivating at the thought of running against a Democratic nominee whose negatives invite an armada of Swift-boat attacks. More than 40 percent of the electorate have held an unfavorable view of Hillary in every Gallup Poll in the last two years. (In contrast, Obama's unfavorable rating is 27 percent and Edwards' is 31 percent in the latest Gallup Poll released earlier this month.)...

9) If she hasn't closed the deal by now
Hillary Rodham Clinton has been in the public eye for nearly 16 years. Yet despite her strong overall lead, more than half the Democratic voters (in almost every poll) prefer other presidential candidates. For all her success at rebranding herself this year, it is worth asking what more can she do to win over the still skeptical wing of the Democratic Party?

10) The iron law of politics
Surprising things happen. The future is not an unchanging extrapolation from today. "Expect the unexpected" is an expression that anyone over the age of 17 finds a cloying cliché. But when it comes to a presidential campaign -- more than two months before the Iowa caucuses -- it is also a perfect description of reality.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/16/hillary_10/print.html

With apologies for violating the 3-4 paragraph rule...

[illinoisprogressive]

1. Excellent, excellent post.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Shapiro is grinding himself down with all this negative bullshit

This is all the ugliest kind of wishful bad thinking.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

4. Shapiro a little desperado.

[Colobo]

7. The word "desperado" in Spanish means thief, delinquent.

"Desesperado" means desperate.

[JeffR]

5. One man's wishful bad thinking is another man's cogent analysis

Granted, this is all strictly hypothetical, but it's a pretty astute roundup of the possible pitfalls for the current front-runner. I'd have to pay heed to the points mooted even if I were a Clinton backer. As in any political campaign, there are some clear and present dangers here that might just change the dynamics of the race.

You call this ugly, but I'd wager that the Clinton campaign has people working to address any and all of these things, should they come to pass. They'd be stupid not to, and so far I haven't seen much about this campaign I'd describe as stupid.

[John Q. Citizen]

11. I find it hopeful and inspiring. i guess it depends on your personal preferences.

[incapsulated]

3. She could also...

Fall down a well

Become a Scientologist

Be abducted by aliens

Drop acid before a major speech

Spend all the campaign money on hookers and blow

Have a wardrobe malfunction

[CK_John]

6. Hillary's biggest problem in Iowa will be the weather, it will be so nice noone will caucus. n/t

[ShortnFiery]

8. I'm proud to give this it's 5th recommendation.

The HELL if I'll genuflect for HRC or any other arrogant politico.

Words can not describe how disgusted I am with the seedy ways that HRC's image is presented. :eyes:

More and more, I believe that both Michael Moore and Ralph Nader did ORIGINALLY have it right ... America is now all about cronyism and corporate power for "a plutocracy" and no longer a true Democratic Republic. :(

[cuke]

9. If that's all of what HRC needs to worry about, she hasn't many worries at al

At best, you're hoping for lightning to strike. You even nearly repeat yourself (ie "bad things happen" vs "suprising things happen" (which are, unsurprisingly, BAD)). Others ("Some other candidate gets his act together") only reveal just how dismal a view you have for the other candidates chances.

I've gotten the distinct impression that you did not offer this OP as encouragement to us Hillary supporters, yet I find this thread (and your despair) one of the most encouraging things I've read on DU.

[DFW]

10. I'd be careful about pushing the "dynasty" thing too much

Where her name is "Clinton," her behavior and outlook seem much more
like a "Rodham" to me. Where Bill Clinton was born into poverty, she
was born into privilege, and grew up in a conservative Republican
background. She may be a convert, but like the immigrant, she wasn't
"born here," if you know what I mean, and she remembers her roots. To what
extent she honors them is the big question we all want answered.