Hillary calling Iowa Dems, tells unnamed NY pol, “I’m going to go for this.”
I’ve been saying this in one form or another going back to 2001. But I’ve always thought Hillary’s chances are way over-rated. Not just in a hypothetical general election — that’s another matter — but in a Democratic primary election. As much as Hillary — who I’m a fan of — has taken the brunt of ugly beltway conventional wisdom over the years, I still think her apparent strength at this point is just that — puffed up endlessly by beltway insiders who aren’t in touch with the real viability of her candidacy, or lack thereof.
Late Update: TPM Reader KD seems to agree … “My take, similar to yours, is that she has been anointed frontrunner by two groups of people for two different sets of reasons: conservatives, because they are obsessed with the Clintons and they think they can beat her; and the beltway media, because it is easy and they think it would be fun. Nobody has yet asked the Democratic voters, and color me skeptical.”
Later Update: Then there’s TPM Reader ML … “not only have they failed to ask democratic voters, they have failed to make the rudimentary observation that no one in the grassroots wants clinton. further observations i could offer include that very few democratic party operatives (who aren’t highly-paid) care about her candidacy. another one: democratic primary voters are going to care about who can win in the general, and there’s substantial evidence and complementary bad buzz suggesting that clinton would not be our gal. people want a winner, and if there’s such a widespread early perception that she would lose the general, i don’t see how she overcomes that.”
