Is Hillary showing too much edge?

[jefferson_dem]

Is Hillary showing too much edge?
BY GLENN THRUSH

July 28, 2007, 9:51 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- For seven years Hillary Rodham Clinton has played against type, courting skeptics and sandpapering away her sharpest edges to counter perceptions that she was caustic, short-tempered and politically ruthless.

That charm offensive came to a screeching halt after last Monday's YouTube/CNN debate when she ridiculed Barack Obama's promise to meet with hostile foreign leaders unconditionally during his first year in office.

Her aides were declaring victory in last week's fight, but Clinton's attacks on the Illinois senator have some wondering if she's sacrificing long-term image-building for a few whacks at an opponent who's been getting under her skin.

"She threw some of that goodwill out the window by attacking Obama," said Andrew Polsky, a Hunter College political science professor.

"She has a very difficult road ahead of her," he added. "Her negatives are so high, 40 to 45 percent of the American people won't vote for her under any circumstance. Can she really afford to alienate anybody else? That's the real risk they are taking when she goes into attack mode."

<SNIP>

Mark Penn, Clinton's pollster and a top political adviser, said Clinton isn't attacking so much as mounting a very, very vigorous defense against Obama's criticism of her war record.

"He always intended to use the debate to open a much wider range of attacks against her," Penn said. "So we had to come back at him ... I think people see him as much more the aggressor."

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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ushill0729b,0,785773,print.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

[Buck Turgidson]

1. Will J_Dem ever stop linking to right wing propoganda?

[BeyondGeography]

2. Whaa? Newsday is a liberal NYC paper

Try again.

[jefferson_dem]

3. LOL!. Nice comeback.

So now Newsday is RW propaganda. Did you even read the commentary?

Great moniker, by the way...One of my favorite characters from my absolute favorite movie of all time.

[earthlover]

4. Well, if it is true going into the attack mode will risk higher negatives....

...this is another reason NOT to nominate Hillary. Her negatives are already high. Would she be unable to attack the Rep nominee for fear of driving up her negatives even higher?

We need a candidate who is not so hampered if we are to win in the general.

[MGKrebs]

5. Let me just say that if upcoming polls bear this opinion out,

then it means that this pundit was right. If the polls do NOT reflect this opinion, it just means the pundit was wrong, not that the polls are fixed.

In other words, if you don't trust polls, you shouldn't use them no matter what they say, and pundits are just guessing like the rest of us.

[Ethelk2044]

6. Yes, she is . Like they just said She is worried about Obama. It shows.

[TwilightGardener]

7. I agree that she needs to watch the sharpness of the attacks--

anything that makes her less likeable/less sympathetic will hurt her far more than the actual attack will hurt her opponent. Her one big weakness in this race is that she is not exactly beloved by a large segment of the country. Everybody knows she's sharp, professional, tough, and a fighter--but likeability is what won Chimpy the WH. I thought she got her effective shot in at the debate--she should have left it at that, but she went over the top by calling Obama naive and irresponsible. Anything that damages him for the general is a bad move IMO, although that's what she's trying to accomplish, perhaps--weaken him so badly with so many insults that we can't possibly nominate him, with those terrible Hillary soundbites floating around for the GOP to use ad nauseam. Not good, Hillary.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

8. IMO Hilary may unintentionally be helping Dubya and Cheney invade Iran. They now may

more easily avoid talking to Ahmajinadad (spelling?), for fear of "naively" giving more credibility to a Holocaust denier.

The next time Dubya and his handlers turn down efforts to promote direct talks between the US and Iran to forestall violence, Obama can yell, "CHECKMATE"!

[City67]

9. My concern

Is that Hillary will still run even knowing her numbers are terrible and she might be unelectable. Theres a whole lot of ambition and drive in her. And thats a good thing when focused properly but people have to know when to take it down a notch too.