I could be wrong but I think the 8 years of Bill gave the US more than enough of triangulating, poll based policies, and taking actions due to strategic reasons rather core principals. If the GOP can put Hillary into this category it will hurt her.

Hillary is trapped in "no-man's land" between the raving moonbats on the left - which she cannot embrace or she loses the center and true centralist positions - which if she exposes will lose her the left wing. In either case she's dead meat, politically speaking. She'd do well to focus on her next senatorial election and give up her fantasy of another stay in the White House. It just will not happen.

She won't lose the primaries no matter what she does and should be positioning herself for the general.

We elected W twice.

Presuming they want to win, Warner and Edwards will attack her like she's never been attacked before. It will be interesting to watch her reaction.

Will she stay above it, like W, or descend into madness, like Bob Dole?

If the $$$ turns hard left, she is in trouble, but she ought to be the nominee. She won't get over 46% in the general, however, which is her biggest liability.

Edwards? Mr. 2 Americas? How many primaries did he win in 2004? I don't think his skills keep HRC up at night.

Warner? This month's flavor. I guess he has skills but is he a left alternative to HRC? No, he is a right alternative. Is that a good place in the Dem primaries? Lets ask Joe Lieberman about that.

hillary won't get the nomination. she is a media creation and how often are those people right ? just who is her natural constintuency ? she is already taking heat on the left -- keep in mind she is trolling in bill's wake and everyone is looking out for the same kind of betrayal the clinton's have always practiced. she is as real a threat as margaret hamilton was.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2005/Democrats%202008.htm

If the Democrats are insane, they will nominate Hillary.

If they are sane, they will nominate Warner.

I'm betting on 'insane.'
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I don't like Savage, but on a recent show, he played two Hillary speech clips (one new, one old), and one from the movie "Mommy Dearest" with the screetching "NO WIRE HANGERS!!!" line.

All three clips are virtually indistiguishable. It should be the number one Republican ad after the Dem Convention.

Hillary-ious

The lesbians will vote for Hillary; many of the rest of the women might just vote Edwards. He's a lightweight, of course, but so was Bill in 1991/2. And Edwards has tacked left, in a hurry.

Hillary's easiest road is if Dean runs, because then it will be a reprise of 2004. But if she has to actually run to the left, every vote she panders for in Jan./Feb./March will cost her 5 times over in the general election.

Supposedly Warner is worth upwards of $200 million. That's plenty of money, and he will get all the adoration he needs from the press. Rudy would squash him, I think, but McCain is going to face the old man issue against either Warner or Edwards.

Quite a decision for the Dems, eh? But if we are regime-changing Iran or NK during 2007, they will be even more confused than they are now.

The hard left controls the money in the Democrat party. The Kos Kiddies and DU-ers and Soros don't like her. Game, set, and match.

They couldn't even get Dean a primary victory--they're insignificant once the voting starts, as is the "Right" blogosphere.

The Breck girl doesn't appeal to women, so between Hillary and Edwards, Dem women will probably go with Hillary.

My woman's intuition may have been off, but I'm convinced that the 2004 Democratic ticket was the first, that I'm aware of at least, where both candidates were non-heteros.

OJ:

I (mostly) agree, but note that the union vote is significantly more liberal than ever before (even as it shrinks) due to the public service workers, and the DLC types do not have power in the party anymore (no more Bob Strausses, no more Lloyd Cutlers, no more John Breauxs, etc.). Dean finished ahead of Gephardt in 2004, and he would do better (all else equal) in 2008.

When USA Today runs Bob Beckel as a mainstream Democrat, the bench is empty.

Even guys like Carville and Begala are one-note Johnnys, shilling for the Clintons. What would the Democrats do if Soros, Peter Lewis, Steve Bing, Barbra, Meathead, and possibly Warren Buffett decided to push for anyone but Hillary in 2007? Unlikely, but possible. And nothing would hurt her more than supplicating before the hard left.

The party regulars run Iowa and they'll sock it in for her, then she wins NH easily, and no one else can even afford to stay in the race. Ask Phil Gramm what lots of money gets you once folks start voting.

The Dems are deciding now whether to have 2 primaries between IA and NH (because those states are too white). They will vote on it in April in New Orleans. I think this time they will change the order, but the article in USA Today didn't give up names of the 'new' states.

My guess would be PA and perhaps SC, or maybe MI. Your reminder of Phil Gramm is good, although he had every negative (just like Big Jawn back in 1980), plus he looks like a basset hound.

If things are quiet in 2007, Hillary should breeze in, but fighting in any other hot spot means her 'centrist' foreign policy position will be shredded by the hard left. Whether that is enough to beat her in a primary is unclear. However, if she loses JUST one of the early ones, her inevitability becomes a lead albatross and she will sink lower than whale dung. Bill could be 'the comeback kid', but she is stuck with being the dominatrix-in-chief, the smartest woman in America, the second coming. You get the idea. That is why I think she will do poorly when the dwarfs really go after her. And if they slash like Gore did to Bradley, it will be rough.

I still think she needs to divorce Bill to really make it work. By late 2007, most leftists won't even remember who he was, and Clinton fatigue will take on a whole new meaning. His glad-handing and schmoozing will hurt her (because it will diminish the image she wants to convey).

Any Republicans grown less fond of Reagan?

Tut-tut - Reagan is adored for his principles, his tenacity, and his character. The expansion of the GOP since he took office flows from them.

Bill Clinton is adored for what - his glibness, his economic stewardship (which Al Gore immediately squandered by charging to the left), his nuanced depth (which is a nice way of saying he couldn't make up his mind about anything), his 80-minute SOTU speeches, his attack dogs (Carville, Begala, Ann Lewis, and Sid Blumenthal), his political skill, his empathy?

Clinton is the virus the Democrats just cannot expel. Susan Estrich wrote earlier this year that the party needs to tell the Clintons to get lost. Then a few months later, she is falling at Hillary's feet. Kennedy (and Kerry) didn't like him, don't like her, and can't bring themselves to say so. Al Gore, the same.

But Reagan's legacy lives on, with very tangible and obvious results (55-45 and increasing, 232-202 and holding steady, 28-22 and holding steady), plus a gracious, honorable, and elegiac goodbye from the nation.

Clinton's legacy is (and will be) quite different, no?

The GOP lost the presidency, Senate and governorships during and post Reagan. How does he not get any blame for that but all the credit for the Newt/W comeback?

People don't remember the actual President but a glossy version they invent for themselves. reagan may have been the biggest tax-hiker and budget buster in history, but in conservative memory he's Coolidge with charisma. Likewise the Clinton of Democrat memory stood single-handed against the forces of the evil GOP resurgence and puritanical witch-hunting and gave the party its only bright moments since the '60s.

GHWB won 40 states running as Reagan II.

The Senate was lost because the 1980 freshmen winners were pretty horrible (Hawkins, Mattingly, etc.), and because there was no political boost from tax 'reform'.

We know Reagan raised taxes, kicked the can on SS, and never really challenged Congress with a frontal assault on spending. I still wish he had thrown the 1983 or 1984 budget into the well of the House during a SOTU and given it to them right between the eyes as the paper fluttered everywhere, but he didn't. The GOP lost 2 Senate seats in the 1984 election, which seems impossible with a 59-41 victory, but there you have it.

But he got most things right. I doubt if your average leftist feels that way about Bill Clinton. He signed NAFTA, he signed welfare reform, he bombed the Chinese embassy, he started this globalization mess, he folded on health care. Remember Robert Reich's conclusion of Clinton's term was the disappointment in what could have been. Sounds familiar, no?

Now, I wouldn't say that about Reagan, but I know many 'conservatives' who would.

Do leftists view Clinton as Horatio at the bridge? I never thought about it that way, but maybe they do. But not warmly, I would suspect. Clinton's friends are in Hollywood and on cable TV, not in D.C.

Is he going to be campaigning for any white candidates in 2006 (aside from NY)? I rest my case.

Reagan was a New Dealer. W ran on the Third Way, like Clinton.

If bubba wants Hill to be president, he has to leave this mortal coil first. His recent pictures show him looking peaked.

The sympathy vote will give her a LBJ type landslide. Barring that, she'll need to fight tooth and claw.