Letters to the Editor
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Deep breath, people
I understand that it's exciting to raise the heat at this point in a campaign -- especially if you're a journalist. I am an undecided voter -- and being in Washington state -- probably won't GET to decide the Democratic candidate. But having said that, the Clinton campaign has every right to tout these poll results as they do -- not because the poll is infallible -- none are -- but because it's a legitimate piece of data for Democrats to consider.
Listen, she's running for a nomination now and so it does, in fact, matter what other Democrats think, feel, believe and will do. We don't agree with 90% of Republicans on 90% of topics so why should we care about what they believe about hypothetical nominees in an election a year away?
Give Democratic voters some credit -- regardless of whom they support, they've watched this cycle play out repeatedly where the supposed manly Republican is always going to whup the girly Democrats in the conventional wisdom of future elections. But we have also witnessed that the Clintons -- and especially Hillary Clinton -- have managed to outmaneuver their Republican foes time and time again. Most importantly, we've watched Hillary Clinton take opposition to her and turn it into lemonade.
Most voters are not as partisan as most folks who post here. Most are not ideological or pure in their supposed ideals for candidates. But while most Republicans haven't figured out how truly scary Giuliani is, how slippery and empty Romney is and how retrograde Huckabee is on his thinking of church and state, I don't think it's a stretch to give Democrats some credit for thinking that many will figure it out before too long -- and having a tough, battle-proven candidate will be the one to bring it out.
I, for one, am thrilled with the line-up of Democrats. There's not one that I agree with 100% but there's not one that I think, at this point, wouldn't be a huge improvement over anyone on the other side.