Hillary Clinton is the current Democratic front-runner for the Presidential nomination, and barring significant missteps, she will probably win. If that's true, she would face a formidable, perhaps insurmountable, foe in the general election.
That opponent would not be one of the lame GOP candidates who differ from one another only in the degree of their general scariness and retrograde policies; rather, the opponent would be her own well-documented, significant negatives with the general electorate. Given that, is there a coordinated move afoot by the GOP to push along the idea of Hillary as inevitable nominee - so they do indeed have a shot at retaining the White House in 2008?
I started to think about this after a C-SPAN segment referenced a piece by Rich Lowry in the National Review. The article heaps praise on Senator Clinton's preparedness and on the efficiency of her campaign organization to a degree you would generally find stunning in that publication:
She has turned in a solid, self-assured performance in all the debates, has revved up an impressive organization and hasn’t made a major mistake under the glare of a media that magnify everything she does...she’s a talented politician who has a clear path to the Democratic presidential nomination and to the presidency.
This article by syndicated columnist Matt Stearns wonders the same thing, and quotes many of the usual suspects such as Krauthammer, Brooks, and Fred Barnes in assembling a bit of evidence for this theory. Is this just some coincidental drivel at a relative slack summer point in the campaign, or the beginning of a concerted effort to push the opponent they feel they are most likely to beat next year?