Does this surprise you?

Take a look back at the comments from the TNR Straw Pole in the summer of '06.  HRC received a resounding 'NO!' from TNR readers and a big part of the reason why is that she was perceived as polarizing and hence of limited electability.  

I have an Australian friend, a woman, who is fascinated with American politics and with HRC in particular.  For at least the past three years this friend has been pestering me, trying to get me to concede that Clinton was likely to be the next POTUS.  From the beginning my line has been, 'Well, she has a decent shot at the Democratic nomination (at the time I was hopeful Gore would run and put the kibosh on HRC), but she will never be elected president.  She's hated by too many people around the country."  Given the implosion of the GOP over the past year, I've had to alter my predictions; ANY Democrat has a good chance in the general election, including HRC.  But she remains a hated, polarizing figure.  For example, I can't see her taking my home state of Virginia, but I think that either Edwards or Obama could be the first Democrat to lasso the Old Dominion's electors in decades.  

The Democrats need the man with the Southern drawl.  Edwards would be the last nail in the coffin of the Southern Strategy.  Not that he would take very many of the states of the Old Confederacy, but he'd keep Virginia in play and he'd bring North Carolina into the mix as well.  

As for Edwards and Carolina, its important not only that he's from NC but precisely WHERE in NC he's from.  He's from Wilson, a mill town of about 30,000 in the heart of rural eastern North Carolina. (I lived in Wilson for a month on a med school rotation)

This is important politically.  

Because of its concentration of scientists, academics and their hangers-on, as well as African-Americans, the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle is as blue as New York City.  Charlotte and the Piedmont Triad, the state's other two major urban centers are more typically Southern cities and less reliably Democratic, but they too have tended to go blue in recent election cycles.  The rural eastern counties, on the other hand, are Jesse Helms territory, red as red can be.  Nearly all recent statewide elections in North Carolina have boiled down to a contest between the cities and the rural east, with the winner being decided to a large extent by who managed best to mobilize his or her regional base.

Now, I doubt that Edwards could pull many committed Republicans to his side even in his hometown.  But given a choice between either a pro-choice, Italian Catholic from New York City or a smart-ass Mormon business consultant and a local boy made good, a large number of East Carolina Repubs would choose to sit this one out.  Nominate HRC and you throw that advantage out the window.

I'm no fan of Hillary, but the data mentioned in the article is entirely unconvincing. Or inconsistent with that of other polls, anyhow.

For example, Survey USA publishes a range of state polls every month where they match up Clinton with various Republicans. Results from the last month show Hillary leading Giuliani by 1% to 5% in states of various shades of red: not just Iowa, Ohio and Florida, but even Missouri, Virginia and Kentucky (!). She has led Giuliani in Virginia as well as Iowa for three subsequent months now, and bested him in New Mexico, Ohio and Kentucky in two of the last three months, and in Florida both times the state was polled in these months. So that's a drastically different picture than the one sketched in this item.

Rasmussen does many state-by-state match-up polls as well, and its numbers are a conspicuous shade less positive than Survey USA's. But still they show Hillary quite consistently improving on Kerry's 2004 score in red and purple states. In the last month, Rasmussen polls had Hillary trailing Giuliani in Missouri by 3 points (Kerry lost by 7), in Virginia by 3 points (Kerry lost by 8), in North Carolina by just 1 point (Kerry lost by 12), and in Kentucky by 6 points (Kerry lost by 20). It also had Hillary leading by 9 points in Michigan, which Kerry won by just 3.

Same in polls published by Rasmussen between mid-August and early October. Hillary actually led Giuliani in Tennessee, trumped him by an 18 point margin in Arkansas, led him by 3 points in Missouri, and trailed him in Alabama by 16 points, when Kerry lost by 26.

Even the state-level polls I've seen by Quinnipiac itself do not confirm the point of this item. For example, Quinnipiac polls in late September/early October had Hillary doubling Kerry's lead in Pennsylvania and leading Giuliani by 6 points in Ohio and 3 points in Florida. The month before, Quinnipiac had Hillary leading him by 7 points in Ohio and running equal in Florida.

In short, there's something odd about the Quinnipiac numbers presented here. Either they signal a sudden decline in Hillary's standing in purple and red states that Quinnipiac's own previous polls and those by other pollsters did not catch yet; or they just represent an off-month for either Hillary or, well, Quinnipiac.

voter opinions are very unsophisticated right now (Hillary=Clintonwoman, Barack=Blackddude, Edwards=Southerndude). I'm not interested in these polls unless they show something SURPRISING.

The only real news here is that rudy tends to run better than most Republicans in a trial heat. That's been proven by about 200 different polls.

There really isn't a trend RE: Hillary vs Edwards vs Obama that I can detect.

As Aeromonas has said, no real surprise here.

After two elections that should have been easily won but weren't, why would Democrats want to take a chance on a hugely polarizing figure (who, BTW, has demonstrated herself to be the Republicans' best fund raiser)? If her Senate record was stellar (it's not), or her time as First Lady was extraordinary (it wasn't), she might be worth it. But she's not.

Aero, please run Edwards.  He's a trial lawyer with an isolationist fp, who is a Johnny one-note in domestic affairs.  Class warfare doesn't sell outside certain fevered swamps these days.

Not only would Edwards not win VA, he would win exactly zero states in the South, and only the bluest of states (CA, NJ, MD, WA) nationwide.

At least HRC is centrist.

BHLnyc wrote: "As Aeromonas has said, no real surprise here."

Except that all other recent systematic state-by-state polling shows the opposite.