What Karl Rove isn't saying about Hillary's unfavorable poll numbers

[William769]

As Karl Rove leaves the white house with the lowest poll numbers in recent history, he has been making the rounds to the various news talk shows trying to gain momentum for his latest anti-Hillary remarks. He criticizes her by saying "more people have an unfavorable opinion of the NY Senator and former First Lady". She enters the general election campaign with the highest negatives of any candidate in the history of the Gallup poll," Rove said on Face the Nation.

Karl's new favorite anti-Hillary word is "polarizing". The sound-bite goes "Hillary is polarizing, therefore she is unelectable". He claims that any candidate with the high unfavorable ratings that she has cannot win the election.

But what he isn't saying is how the numbers have unfolded over the past few months for the three major candidates in each party. According to a Rasmussen poll that tracks favorable and unfavorable ratings, here are the top 3 candidates in each party (Democrats = Hillary, Barak Obama, John Edwards) and (Republicans = Rudy Guiliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney):

Unfavorable Ratings
Clinton: April 52% June 50% August 47% down 5%
Edwards: April 30% June 32% August 32% up 2%
Obama: April 27% June 27% August 34% up 7%
Guiliani: April 24% June 29% August 32% up 8%
Romney: April 21% June 24% August 31% up 10%
McCain: April 26% June 27% August 42% up 16%

Hillary began with a 52% unfavorable rating, which has declined each month as her campaign progresses and she does well in the debates. She is the only candidate who had this rating drop (by 5 points) in 3 months, whereas all the other candidates' unfavorable rating increased. The highest being John McCain who started out at only 26% unfavorable and is now up to 42% (a 16 point jump in the wrong direction). Please note, all three of the Republican candidates unfavorables have increased more than any of the Democrats.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/8/23/165546/816

[Old and In the Way]

1. Big surprise....Republicans have had a 15 headstart villifying Hillary.

Anyone who thinks any of our candidates won't have a custom made smear campaign tailored for each of them hasn't been paying attention in the last 10 Presidential election cycles or so.

[William769]

3. Which pretty much speaks of most every one on DU that tries to use Hillary's unfavorables against he...

NT

[lapfog_1]

2. Well, if anyone knows "polarizing" candidates... it would be KKKarl! -n/t

[dmallind]

4. I've tried to make this point many times

When the anti-Hillary types get going. I'm not even a HRC primary supporter and unliekly to become one but this strange fascination with trying to portray her as unelectable is frustratinly ubiquitous and always always denies that of course her unfavorables are high because she's been one of the top three smear targets every year for the last 16 straight, whereas the attack machine has barely gotten started with Obama and not much further ahead with Edwards.

I keep saying her unfavorables will only drop and theirs will only rise (by general election time 40% is an absolute FLOOR for any Dem candidate) as she spends some of that huge fund on image ads and as the attack dogs pay more attention to the other Dem candidates - all of whom have many times larger undecideds (and generally less intense support).

No doubt that even though this has started happening already as you posted this will only be a blip or a conspiracy by the media not a REAL poll (most often because either they weren't asked in the sample size or they don;t know anyone who agrees with it personally) and I will be missing some fact about why image ads won't work and why Hillary will cruimble once they REALLY start attacking her (perhaps the idea is Scaife et al showed remarkable patience when they threw all that mud and none of it stuck and they were holding back the REALLY juicy stuff until she ran for Prez).

Yes it's way too early to talk about inevitability. Yes it's going to change - even in both directions no doubt - between then and now, but the probability remains extremely high that she will be nominated, and pretty darn high that she will be elected. Currently I'd give 3-1 odds against "the field" getting the nomination and probably 3-2 odds against an unnamed general opponent.

[creeksneakers2]

8. Wise to see the future as uncertain

I've read lots of complaints by Hillary bashers who say that its terrible for somebody to say its inevitable that she'll win (which I've yet to see anybody actually say) but its OK for the bashers to say Hillary will inevitably lose. Who knows now? The election is far away.

[emilyg]

5. K&R

[William769]

6. Thanks.

I hope I am doing SaveElmer a service, while he's away for the week.

[emilyg]

7. you're holding us together nicely.

[ronnykmarshall]

9. and he's doing a great job.

Sorry, but I've (and still will) take a break.

[Look My Way]

10. I only see 3 Democrats and 3 Republicans !

I hate these polls that leave out most of the candidates. I call it polling on the cheap or controlled polling. At this phase of the game in 2004 John Kerry was at 4% and ended up the nominee.