No Done Deal: Once 'Inevitable' Candidate Finds Herself in a Tight Race

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: No Done Deal
The Once 'Inevitable' Candidate Find Herself in a Tight Race
By Dan Balz
Sunday, December 9, 2007; Page A24

She once was the all-but-inevitable front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, powered by the best brand name in her party, a rock-steady performance on the campaign trail, and a muscular, confident campaign team known for playing hard -- and winning.

Many Democrats still see Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as their likeliest nominee, but all talk of inevitability is gone. No one seems to know that more than the candidate herself. Last weekend in Iowa, where the competition with Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina is most fierce, she did an about-face. Overnight, her above-the-fray posture was replaced by the carriage of a candidate who knows that she must fight to win.

Her liabilities always were there lurking, but through much of the year, her opponents watched with envy and admiration as Clinton cruised to an overwhelming lead in national opinion polls, turning perceived weaknesses into apparent strengths.

Because she was a Washington insider who understood the system, she argued, she could best become the "change" candidate. She may have drawn the ire of antiwar Democrats by supporting the Iraq war in the beginning, but she tried to assure them that she could end the conflict more effectively than any of her rivals. Her health-care plan may have cratered in 1994, she acknowledged, but she had learned enough from that experience to make it possible to deliver as president on the promise of universal coverage.

Clinton's campaign seeks to make history, the ultimate attempt to shatter the thickest glass ceiling in American politics. It is a potentially historic candidacy in dynastic politics as well. Clinton would be the only former first lady to succeed her husband as president. Candidate Clinton is cut from a different mold than her husband. She lacks his natural talent as a campaigner and his easy empathy with almost any audience. But she has what he has often lacked. She is methodical, disciplined and always well prepared. In the estimation of friend and foe, she has demonstrated skills as a candidate that they had not expected to see....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801441.html?hpid=artslot

[Bitwit1234]

1. Ring the bells from the steeple

President Hillary Clinton --OBAMA will never even get the nomination never why don't you all realize that.

[Cha]

2. That's what I

like! "No Done Deals"! Especially when that "deal" that isn't done is hillary clinton.

[City67]

3. I havent been by much lately

What's the overall feelings toward Hillary?

I am leaning towards Obama myself but havent carved it in stone yet.