The sham candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton — we may soon start referring to it as the political equivalent of Bruce Jenner’s “sex change” and Rachel Dolezal’s “African-American” heritage — continues apace. Only now more and more folks are noticing that the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua is shedding her cloak of invincibility faster than Blaze Starr used to shed her clothes:
Hillary Clinton has relaunched her campaign on Roosevelt Island with a 4,687-word speech. But it’s not clear whether she and her husband Bill Clinton can win four presidential elections as Franklin Roosevelt did. Negative news for Clinton’s prospects comes in the latest Quinnipiac polls in the key mega-states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In each of them she leads or ties Republican opponents, though in many cases not by statistically significant margins.
But she also is running under 50 percent of the vote in every pairing, averaging 47 percent against six different Republicans in Florida, 44 percent against seven Republicans in Ohio and 46 percent against four Republicans in Pennsylvania. That’s a danger zone for a candidate with universal recognition. Similarly, less than 50 percent — 47 percent in Florida, 44 percent in Ohio and 46 percent in Pennsylvania — express favorable feelings about her. Only 43 percent in Florida and 40 percent in Ohio and Pennsylvania feel she is honest and trustworthy.
And, perhaps surprisingly for a Democrat, only 48 percent in Ohio and Florida and 45 percent in Pennsylvania say she “cares about the needs and problems of people like you.”
Clinton campaign spokesmen have said their goal is to reassemble Barack Obama’s winning coalition. But she’s falling short in three large states which Obama carried in 2012 with 50, 51 and 52 percent of the vote. These states have 67 electoral votes, without which Obama would have won only 265 — and Mitt Romney would be president.
Maybe she isn’t “likable enough” after all.
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