I don't think Hillary is considered a Northern liberal by everyone.  She wouldn't poll so well in Arkansas if that were the case.

Hillary is a born and bred Midwesterner, and from watching how she handles herself in Iowa, it's clear that she hasn't outgrown her roots.

As long as Hillary isn't afraid to campaign in the red states in the general election, and lets people see close up that she's not the caricature they've all heard about, I think she'll be fine.

I think Clinton will be strong in all of the Kerry states.

She is leading in the head to head matchup polls in the following "red" states:

Ohio
Florida
W. Virginia
Virginia
Kentucky
Iowa
N. Mexico
Arkansas

I think Nevada and Colorado will also be in play, primarily because Clinton is so strong with Latino/a voters.

Clinton is not John Kerry. Kerry underperformed horribly with female voters, carrying the overall women's vote by a dismal 3%. His lack of appeal to women compared to Gore is why he got clobbered and Gore won the popular vote. Hillary Clinton will be the strongest candidate in history with female voters, especially unmarried female voters who make up roughly a quarter of the electorate.

LOL.  That's sad.  

you were telling me that some of these same elements, which are in the Edwards health care proposal, could never be adopted by Congress.

The public option is the most important part to me. I am pretty sure it did not exist in Clinton's 1993/1994 health care proposal. I don't care who originated the idea, but Edwards proposed it earlier this year, and now Hillary is too. That is a good thing for Democrats and for all Americans.

I am glad that Hillary is on record supporting this idea. I personally do not believe that she would have gone that far if she weren't trying to beat Edwards in Iowa.

bookgirl:

I don't think it was a matter of drawing her competitors in. Instead, I think it was more a question of laying out a series of high-visibility announcements over a nine-month primary campaign. Announcing her health care plan was always going to generate huge media coverage and interest. After all, no politician is as closely associated with the issue as Hillary Clinton.

It just didn't make sense to waste this announcement before the fall, when people are really starting to focus.

I agree completely.

The issue with this is that she needs to accept the failures as well.  "They" introduced 'Don't Ask Don't Tell.' "They" signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  "They" fought to pass NAFTA (which cost Democrats Congress and killed millions of manufacturing jobs).  "They" got impeached because of perjury.

When is Obama, Edwards or Richardson going to call her on the "we" HRC uses?

If Nancy Reagan ran for President would Dems. credit the eight years she was FLOTUS as governmental service?

Why are Dems willing to hold FLOTUS HRC to a different standard?

She is actually referring to the Democratic party under the leadership of Bill Clinton. Bill did not pass legislation, Congress does that. And it did under his leadership.

She is actually running on "balancing the budget."  Those of us who value a balanced budget really have no choice, as neither Edwards nor Obama are running on it.  

Sometimes the idea is to call out the frontrunner in the other party to try and demonstrate confidence.  Sometimes the idea is simply to score cheap applause by campaigning against the other side's lightning rod.

If you're a hardcore Republican voter, your #1 concern in the primary might be finding the candidate who can beat Hillary and save the world from liberal doom.  So the Republican candidates feel they have to demonstrate they can beat Hillary, or at least that they're not afraid to take her on.  They don't talk about her as part of some devious plan to get her the Democratic nomination.

The media has given George Bush a six year honeymoon.  That will not be true for Hillary.  She will be attacked for everything she says and does.  They want this to be a one term presidency and will do everything and anything to make that happen.  I have never been a Republican but even I cannot understand what has happened to the Republican Party.  They are embarrassing and incompetent.  They passed bills in the middle of the night with just one vote and are proud.  They support wars that most Americans have turned their backs on and do whatever they can to hurt the middle class, cutting school loans, making it harder to declare bankruptcy and sending good jobs out of the country etc.

All the Republicans have left is their hatred and in the end that is what will bring them down.  They hate hispanics, women, gays, blacks, the middle class, the poor.  Who is left to vote for them except the people who love death and destruction.  For those of us who want to feel good again.  We will vote for Hillary -- she's our girl.

My hunch is that Clinton will bring out a bunch of new voters (i.e. women who never voted before, Republican women who see a historic moment, Hispanics who were Bill Clinton voters but left the Democratic party for the GOP for the last 2 general elections. etc.)   I really don't see this groundswell of "bad" for Clinton.  Wouldn't they already be out en masse now?  Before they have a chance to see her in GE candidate debates, scratch their heads and go "Wait a minute here now, I thought she was supposed to be this cold beotch, not this joke machine that has me in stitches?"   Thompson, the new Republican standard bearer, who has vaulted to the top of the GOP polls, gets 400 people to come to his long-awaited announcement.   There should be more of a visible "Hillary sucks" GOP presence at rallies (or at Hillary Clinton events) if what you claim here was truly the correct state of affairs in our country.  

The view is different from Georgia, sad to say, and with the Peach State's incresingly regressive posture (on a wide variety of issues, some of which I've already mentioned in other diaries), it is imperative that we keep the Republicans dispirited and unmotivated if we are to have any chance down here.

Here's reality. No Democrat is going to carry Georgia in the 2008 election. Other than Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, Georgia is the most hard-core Republican state in the south. It's the Republican base. In Georgia, Max Cleland isn't "strong enough on defense" to get re-elected. That's just the reality of the situation.

Having said that, Matt Lowrey of the Southern Political Report has said that he is seeing surprising strength in Georgia for Hillary Clinton in his Insider Advantage polling. Like elsewhere, this strength is being driven by very high numbers from women voters.

Georgia is too red-state to actually flip in the general election, but this same dynamic accounts for shocking polls showing Clinton leading all Republican contenders in states like Virginia and Kentucky. With Clinton, there is a gender dynamic in the race that exists outside of the same old left/right definitions. The base of the Democratic vote has been female voters for quite some time. Clinton will energize this Democratic base like we have never seen.

Nonsense.

If you want to play electoral math, name me one state that Kerry won that you think Clinton will lose, and back up your theory.

Otherwise, all Hillary has to do is flip a major state, like say the GOP scandal crippled state of Ohio, and she becomes President. The Ohio GOP is bleeding to death right now, the polling is dreadful across the board for the party, and the Democrats have a decent system that is growing rapidly across the state. It's been trending blue for years, and the GOP has accelerated that process with both corruption and some particularly poor recruiting choices. It will be in play for any Democrat candidate, including HRC. She picks it up, and doesn't lose any states Kerry won(and polling indicates that no Blue state from 2004 is looking or trending away to the GOP right now) and you have the election.

Your math is seriously flawed.

Chris Bowers on Openleft, who is clearly not a Hillary supporter, dissected state poll after state poll (all the head to heads) and came up with an electoral map that gives Clinton 310 (or was it 315?) electoral college votes.  That is based on hard facts, hard data.   Whatever you use to make your case is not hard data, but flimsy evidence (anecdotal?) that seems to be "fuzzy math"-ish.  

Not so long ago it was 51% of people that said they wouldn't vote for her under any circumstances. So she is making progress ;-D

Seriously though, about 46 of those 48% are Republicans. Who gives a damn what they think?

Exactly, jasmine.  The focus on issues (via the frontpage) is what makes MyDD the best site in the sphere.  I read with interest the diaries from all frontpagers, am learning more about their stances on issues than would be possible in an echo chamber that exists to bash one or the other candidate (say, a site whose frontpagers like Edwards and dislike Clinton and Obama.)

Jasmime:

I'm glad you have enjoyed the candidate diaries. Thank you.

This week has been better, but as someone who has put a lot of effort into some of my front page diaries, I have found it quite frustrating. Most weeks, the level of discussion in these candidate diaries has been so discouraging that I can't even read the comments.