It is obvious that Hillary Clinton, whether she is running or not, is already the central figure in the 2008 primaries. The Republicans have no strong frontrunner (Allen may lose his Senate seat in November), and the Democrats have a small, but not impressive group (Richardson still may be their best bet, IMO). This editorial comes from Tampa Bay, and it makes me wonder if I should be rooting for Hillary to make it to the general election:

If you run for president, chances are good that you'll secure your party's nomination. But realistically, how do you think you can win the White House? You are the most polarizing figure in the Democratic Party, and your negatives among likely voters are prohibitively high. Many people simply don't trust you. You may share your husband's name, but what people liked about him is not transferable to you.

You are not the person to help define a party that needs to convince voters it can govern from the vital center.

Even yellow dog Florida Democrats express profound reservations about your presidential ambitions. They worry that you cannot attract moderate and independent voters and that your presence will hurt the election chances of other Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.

They fear, Hillary, that you would doom Democrats to impotence for decades. Republicans might relish that prospect, but on reflection, they would acknowledge the importance of a strong two-party political system. Should the Democratic Party be crippled, the Republican Party is likely to become complacent, uninspired and unaccountable.

I would argue that the GOP is already "complacent, uninspired and unaccountable," so on that front, a Hillary run wouldn't change much, except cripple local Democrats, as this editorial suggests. This comes a day after Drudge scoops the new book Strategery, in which Karl Rove had some interesting things to say about HRC:

Rove said he expects the Democrats to be hungry in 2008, since they will have been out of the White House for eight years. He predicted that Clinton will draw on her extensive campaign experience in her bid for the presidency.

“She has seen what the job requires,” he said. “And she has been through six gubernatorial campaigns, two presidential campaigns, and then two senatorial campaigns in a big, industrial state. So she will be a formidable campaigner. She’ll be sure-footed.”

Rove hinted that Clinton, who has been somewhat cautious since election to the Senate in 2000, may find that Americans sometimes want boldness from their president.

“For somebody who is philosophically very liberal, she’ll be a very cautious candidate at times,” he said. “That cautiousness will serve her well a lot of times — not always, but a lot of times.

“For example, her cautiousness had her vote for the Iraq war,” he said. “Her cautiousness has led her to do things to sort of try to position herself as a centrist.”

I'm not ready to say that Hillary running for President is a good thing for conservatives or not, but 2008 is either going to be extremely fascinating or extremely boring. I'm hoping for the former.

Posted by Ryan S. on Monday, February 27, 2006 at 3:11 PM | Permalink |