As for her latest gaffe where she said she supported Spitzer's plan on giving illegal immigrants driver's licenses, then she said she didn't say she supported it (within two minutes), then the next day she said she supported it and yesterday, on CNN, she hedged again on the issue, that will also cost her support from her own party.
Rasmussen, just yesterday:Seventy-seven percent (77%) of American adults are opposed to making drivers licenses available to people who are in the country illegally. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 16% take the opposite view and believe that undocumented immigrants should be allowed to get a license.
Half of voting-age Americans say they would not vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) if she became the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, according to a Harris Interactive poll.
Today we see a couple more polls which do not bode well for the former first lady.
First the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll:
By 50% to 35%, the poll shows, Americans prefer that a Democrat gets elected to succeed Mr. Bush next November. In a direct matchup of leading candidates, however, that margin shrinks to 46% for Mrs. Clinton and 45% for Mr. Giuliani because of defections from voters like Linda Dunbar.
"I just don't totally trust her," said the 57-year-old homemaker from the Cleveland suburb of Seven Hills. Though Mrs. Dunbar voted for Bill Clinton in the 1990s, she would back Mr. Giuliani over Mrs. Clinton next November because at a time of steep foreign-policy challenges"
The USA/Gallup reported today shows more bad news for Hillary, men do not like her.
More than eight in 10 Republicans and more than half the married men in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll say they definitely wouldn't vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton for president.
The poll provides an early snapshot of who's ruling out Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, the three leading candidates for the Democratic nomination.
[...]
The poll found that 36% of women wouldn't vote for Clinton, compared with 50% of men — and 55% of married men.
They go on to say her unfavorable rating is still at 45%.
So, while she is still ahead of the Democratic pack to win the nomination, that lead is decreasing and those numbers change considerably when the focus is on the general election and not the primaries.
Zogby shows in a report from yesterday that I missed, that Hillary is having even more problems, this time in Iowa.
Democrat Hillary Clinton is holding on to a tenuous lead among likely Democratic caucus–goers in Iowa less than two months before those caucus participants will gather in neighborhood meetings to decide which candidate should carry their party banner into the 2008 presidential election.
She leads with 28% support, down from 30% in an August Zogby telephone poll. Barack Obama of Illinois, having made a serious campaign blitz of Iowa in recent months, is showing some progress at 25%, up from 19% in August. Holding steady in third place is John Edwards of North Carolina at 21%, down a bit from the late summer poll. Undecideds remain steady at 12%.
However, the race tightens dramatically when second choices are factored into the mix – a critical wrinkle in the Iowa caucuses. In the caucuses, a first round of “balloting” is conducted, and those candidates who do not win at least 15% support are ruled “unviable” and supporters are directed to a second choice among those who remained “viable” before a second round of “balloting” is conducted. Zogby polling shows Edwards makes big strides as a second–choice candidate, jumping six percent (see chart).
Pollster John Zogby: “This is a real horserace coming into the stretch run. With less than two months before the caucuses, this is anybody’s ballgame.”
The we have the gender gap again.
Gender politics has been a big factor in the Democratic nomination battle, and Clinton – the first woman to be a front–runner for a major party nomination, leads among Iowa women with 32%, compared to 27% for Obama and 19% for Edwards. Among men, it’s a deadlock, with Edwards at 24%, and Clinton and Obama both at 23% support.
However, the picture changes a bit among second–choice voters, where Edwards wins 25% support, compared to 23% for Obama and 18% for Clinton. Among men making a second choice, Edwards also leads with 24% support, compared to 21% for Obama and 19% for Clinton.
I had honestly thought she was a shoe in to take the Democratic nomination and she still might, but the way her numbers are dropping and the tremendous gender gap as well as half the married men saying they "will never vote for her", we might see what some would call an upset after the primaries.
The Democratic race just got a little more interesting.
Now, for no other reason than it amuses me greatly, watch this brilliant video put together by the Edwards team.
HEH
[Update] Because it made me laugh and because he annoys liberals so badly, here is some more about Hillary from Rush Limbaugh:
Clinton's out there attacking Obama. Obama's attacking Clinton. The Hillary team's debating what color her pantsuit should be in the next debate, should it be black to show power, or should it be pink or orange to show lady ruffles and this sort of thing. Dawn, they are. This is what happens. Of course, she says, "I'm your girl," and, when you're a girl, you've gotta worry about your wardrobe and what it says about you, what it projects. This is what we're dealing with here in a presidential campaign. So anyway, we're going to go back and we're going to relive this and get you up to speed with some of the current comments because now people are starting to wonder -- this is really funny -- people are starting to wonder if Bill Clinton is trying to sabotage Hillary with the things that he's doing and saying. Does he really want her to be a president? Does he really want her in the Oval Office? Does he really want to have an East Wing office, you know, first ladies are in the East Wing.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, Rasmussen has poll out. Hillary is plummeting. She remains the front-runner -- front burner, front-runner -- but by a narrower margin out there. Her lead in New Hampshire over Obama has narrowed from 16% prior to the debate to 10% after the debate, she's lost six points, and she's going to keep losing more as long as the story stays alive, which we are going to keep alive. She's down. See, previous... Hold it. She's never fallen below 37% in New Hampshire. Today she's at 34%. So she's plummeting out there in some of these states.
[...]
Let's go to Las Vegas. John, hi, welcome to the EIB Network, sir. You're up first today.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I just want to show, me and my wife are registered independents, and we've been discussing at length, you know, what's going on with Hillary and, you know, Bill's comment that the good old boys are piling up on her, this poor little woman. My wife's comment last night was, "Well, what's going to happen when Ahmadinejad, and Putin, and Chavez, and Castro pile on to her, if and when she's president? Is Bill going to come out or get on a plane and go to every capital in, you know, Russia and Iran and berate them about the way they're treating Hillary?" I mean, it's utterly ridiculous. If she can't stand up to the heat of these boys, how is she going to handle dictators?
RUSH: She can stand it. That's not what this is about. Look, this is Nurse Ratched! This is the woman with the testicle lockbox. This is a woman about whom it's said, "She's not warm. She's not friendly." All of these things are accurate portrayals. She's not going to cower and blanch from anybody. She runs Bill's life. She's got him on, probably, a three-mile leash and he's got three miles he can play around in, but beyond that, you know, she'll start railing him in. She's running this show. That's what makes this even more reprehensible. It's all an act to try to win the election! It's nothing but positioning, and posturing and pandering, and it illustrates that she doesn't have the talent to do this. What it adds up to is that she is not willing to show herself as she is in this campaign. So all of this, "The boys are piling on. It's unfair. You can't hit the girl." She probably laughs at that herself, but, if it'll work, she'll use it, because it did work once with Rick Lazio. So it's just an old page in the playbook brought back to life. She's not going to cower from anybody! Again, that's what makes this so disingenuous. It's all an act. Every bit of this is an act, from the driver's license statements and flip-flops... Well, that wasn't an act. She was caught short on that. She was totally unprepared. But the act is the various stratagems that they have used since then, to try to put this to bed, and it won't go to bed. Nobody is willing to get in bed with her! They can't put it to bed; they can't put her to bed. (interruption) Well, that's about as... Yeah, I agree. That's about as disgusting as the "piling on" analogy. I'm sorry.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The latest from Hillary is, she's now admitted that in the debate she wasn't at her best. "I wasn't at my best the other night in the debate." They tried everything they can to diffuse this and put it to bed.
I will never be able to thank Media Matters enough for bringing Rush to my attention.
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