It is often argued that Hillary Clinton is too polarizing, and that this is one of the reasons why she won't do well (or at least not as well as other Democratic candidates) in the general election.
But is she really? It is true that she has had everything and the kitchen sink thrown at her for the last 15 years, and that this has defined her. Her negatives are currently higher than other Democratic candidates. But, the negatives that matter are the ones on election day. So, let's look at some numbers and trends from the polls.
First of all, let's look at a Gallup Poll published on October 10th. In this poll, we see the following favorability ratings for the Democratic candidates:
| Favorable | Unfavorable | No opinion | Net Favorable |
Clinton | 51 | 44 | 5 | +7 |
Obama | 54 | 27 | 19 | +27 |
Edwards | 48 | 31 | 21 | +17 |
The favorable ratings for the candidates are close to each other, but Clinton has a much higher unfavorability rating. Cause for panic? Not according to Gallup:
Usually, presidential candidates' favorable ratings decline and their unfavorable ratings climb over the course of the campaign as they become better known and increasingly viewed by the public in a strongly partisan light. As a result, in recent elections, the major party presidential nominees have had favorable ratings not much above 50%.
Even though Obama and Edwards have much more positive than negative ratings now, if either is the Democratic nominee he would likely see his ratings decline substantially by November 2008. But the usual campaign dynamic may not apply to Clinton, who is already nearly universally known and has been seen through a partisan lens for a long time. As a result, her favorable ratings may not change much over the course of the campaign. In fact, her current scores are similar to what the presidential nominees' scores will likely be next November.
While the other candidates, should they be the nominee, will be defined as presidential candidates during the campaign for the general election, Clinton's higher negative ratings come from her being pre-defined. It seems unlikely that they will get higher, in fact, I think they might just get lower, as people get to know her and see that she is not the woman she was made out to be in the 15 years of attacks on her by the right wing.
A Rasmussen poll released today takes a look at a similar statistic: who is definitely going to vote for a candidate in the general election, and who definitely won't. The results (August numbers in parentheses):
| Def. FOR | Def. AGAINST | Net |
Clinton | 35 (33) | 46 (43) | -11 (-10) |
Obama | 25 (29) | 43 (35) | -18 (-6) |
Edwards | 20 (20) | 43 (38) | -23 (-18) |
The trends here confirm that Clinton is pre-defined; her numbers are not changing much. The other candidates are moving toward more polarized numbers (the Republican candidates show the same trend). The fact that all candidates end up in negative numbers is probably due to their base currently still being divided during the primaries (I think we've all seen that on DailyKos too..), but they will unite behind the primary candidate.
In the end, I think that the nominee will have to withstand an onslaught that will push his or her positives/negatives to numbers close to what is usual in presidential elections. Hillary Clinton does not necessarily have a more difficult task ahead of her. In fact, I'd say she has more room to get her negatives down as people get to know her instead of the image that she has had through 15 years of (often negative) media coverage.