OOPS. The Hillary Meter is wobbling back to the left – and less electable – side as potential 2008 presidential wannabe Sen. Rodham Hillary Clinton tries to protect her liberal turf.
Today she’s 56 points to the left of America’s political center, up from 52 a few weeks ago, according to the Hillary Meter national poll created by Scott Rasmussen. That puts her a tad further to the left than 2004 loser John Kerry, who’s 54 points off-center.
President Bush is 37 points to the right of center, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – the dream 2008 anti-Hillary candidate for many Republicans – is well-positioned just 21 points to the right.
The wavering Hillary Meter shows what a delicate dance Clinton must do to edge to the center while protecting her left flank, as she did with a red-meat April 9 speech accusing President Bush of creating “a brave new world of extremism.”
“It could be the reaction to the speech,” said independent pollster Rasmussen, who accurately predicted the 2004 election within 1 percentage point of the actual result.
“It could be that a lot of people talked about how she was moving to the center and people said, ‘This is not believable.’ If you’re doing it to remake your image and move to the center, it shouldn’t be so visible,” he added.
Clinton could easily get the Democratic 2008 nomination with such a liberal rating, but “she’s too liberal to get elected” unless things nationally are seen as going badly, he said.
The political center is calculated by taking the percentage of Americans who call themselves conservative (35) and subtracting self-identified liberals (18) for a 17-point conservative tilt.
Clinton today is seen as liberal by 47 percent and conservative by only 8, for a net 39 percent liberal rating. Since the political center leans 17 points to the right, that puts her 56 points off-center.
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Ever since Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D) pulled a sneaky Senate attack to try to snatch away New York’s 750-job contract to build the new presidential helicopter, Clinton and Sen. Chuck Schumer watch his every move.
So when a Senate Armed Services subcommittee held a helicopter hearing yesterday, Clinton made sure to show up, even though she’s not a member – to keep an eye on Dodd’s Connecticut colleague, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D).
Lieberman didn’t try any Dodd-like shenanigans, but you can’t be too careful when it comes to border wars.