http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hillary-is-inevitable-no-more/article/2565492Hillary is inevitable no more
By Washington Examiner | June 3, 2015 | 12:01 am
Two new polls released Tuesday show that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not on any sort of glide-path to the U.S. presidency.
The full effect of Peter Scheitzer's new book, Clinton Cash, is starting to make itself felt. Schweitzer's simple and sound investigative work has been picked up and expanded upon by the mainstream media, showing how the Clintons have enriched themselves and filled their foundation's coffers with help from corporate and foreign interests with business before the State Department under her tenure.
Clinton's favorability rating has crashed into negative territory in both CNN's poll and the ABC/Washington Post poll. In the latter poll, Clinton's result (at 45 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable) is the worst since April 2008, when she was on the cusp of losing the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. In the CNN poll, Clinton's favorable-unfavorable numbers (46 and 50 percent, respectively) are the worst they've been since March 2001.
What's more, Clinton's negative ratings are finally starting to take a toll on her head-to-head polling against the various Republican hopefuls. She has lost double-digit leads against every serious potential Republican nominee in just the last 40 days. In CNN's mid-April poll, she led Sen. Marco Rubio by 14 points, Sen. Rand Paul by 19, and Wisconsin Gov. Walker by 22 points. She now leads Paul by just one point among the adults surveyed, Rubio and Walker by only three points.
And even as they nip at Clinton's heels in head-to-head matchups, most of the Republican frontrunners remain unknown to a large number of voters. The ABC poll shows that 37 percent don't know enough to form either a favorable or an unfavorable opinion of Marco Rubio. The same is true of Scott Walker (48 percent), Rand Paul (29 percent) and to a lesser degree, even Jeb Bush (17 percent). In each case, there remains at least some upside potential — some voters who may be persuadable and could perhaps help any of the Republican candidates catch Clinton.
Clinton, on the other hand, already has near-universal name recognition, and there is no second chance to make a first impression. It is thus harder to imagine her persuading enough voters of her virtues over the next 17 months that she can substantially improve her favorable ratings.
That leaves her a clear and very Clinton-esque path to the presidency — a slash-and-burn campaign.
Can Clinton capture the imaginations of younger voters, as Obama did in 2008, if she runs a scorched earth negative campaign against her opponent? Or will younger voters just sit it out? Or will some sit it out, and others go back to casting their ballots on a more balanced partisan basis — perhaps for a candidate decades younger than she is?
For now, Democrats retain a structural advantage in the Electoral College, meaning Clinton has at least a chance of winning no matter what happens. But her supposed inevitability has probably disappeared as of this week. It's not too late for Democrats to begin questioning whether it's wise to give her a free ride until next summer's convention.
