Amy Sullivan: "Please don't run, Senator Clinton"

This is about as solid an act of tough love I've ever seen in an editorial. Pro-Clinton, but reality based.

Not So Fast

...Two weeks before Election Day (2000), she enjoyed a comfortable lead, polling eight points ahead of opponent Rick Lazio.

And that's when Lazio decided to take matters into his hands and make the race about Clinton whether she liked it or not. His campaign put together a commercial intended to target her biggest vulnerability: white suburban women. All throughout the campaign, this demographic had been the most skeptical; in focus groups, even women who liked Clinton said she reminded them of an unpleasant woman in their lives—a mother-in-law or a stern Catholic nun or a judgmental neighbor. The ad sought to remind them that, deep down, they didn't really like Hillary Clinton, that they thought she was too ambitious. On the screen, a woman making dinner in a kitchen talked on a phone, her tone angry: “We started out at the bottom and worked our tushes off to get somewhere. No, but Hillary, she wants to start at the top, you know, the senator from New York.”

The ad was the most personal of the race, and it worked. Within days, Clinton's lead had shrunk to three points, within the margin of error. Although she recovered to win the Senate seat with 55 percent of the vote, Clinton's advantage among women was only half that of Al Gore's, who won New York's female vote by a margin of 65 to 31.

<snip>

Potential rival John McCain says she would make a fine president. Conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and Bill Kristol are talking up Clinton, warning their partisan colleagues that she would be a formidable opponent. That's not surprising — after all, Republicans have long fantasized about the prospect of taking on Hillary Clinton again at a national level.

I read this after writing just this afternoon essentially the same arguments about the sensational, admirable, honorable Mrs Clinton. She's a great senator. She'd make a great president. But she'd never get there, and 2008 is far too important for us to learn that same lesson all over again.

glad I'm not one of those "targeted" women of the ad that has someone in their life who hillary "reminds them of"..gawd, what an existence to be sucked into a scammy ad like that.

What turned the election for hillary was when lazio and russert potatohead conspired against her in the debates.

Sitting and ex-Senators have a terrible record at catching the White House. This is because opponents distort Senate voting records to paint the candidate as a "flip-flopper" like they did to Kerry.

I also wonder if the swing voters naturally prefer someone with gubernatorial experience rather than legislative experience?

people were elected to the Presidency directly from the Senate: Warren G. Harding and JFK.

Curiously, both had only one full term in the senate.

Hillary!! Don't overcount that "senators never get elected" meme either. Some people think a Senator did get elected president last year. Either way, presidential elections are rare enough that the available examples don't give an accurate range of possibilities.

Yes, I know that matches Hillary. I'm in the minority here, and would love to see her run and win. I'm also in the minority here because I believe she can do it.

:toast: