HILLARY: REPUBLICAN FAVORITE??

Earnest Partridge writes:

Officials at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation have contributed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and Murdoch himself has held fund-raisers in her behalf. Lawyers at Kenneth Starr’s law firm, Kirkland and Ellis, have donated more to Clinton than they have to all of the Republican candidates combined. In addition, Bloomberg.com reports that “Large US [law] firms … are giving thousands more to Democratic hopefuls than Republicans. Top Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds are also giving more to Democrats.” We can assume that most of these donations are going to the front-runners, Clinton and Obama. And finally, Hillary Clinton’s appearance last week at the Yearly Kos, was cut short by her appearance at a fund-raiser at the estate of billionaire, Ron Perlman.

Hillary Clinton appears to be the favorite Democrat of Republican haves and have-mores.

Why is this so?

The oxymoronic “conventional wisdom” in the mainstream media would have us believe that these Republicans, assuming a near-inevitable Democratic victory in 2008, are backing the most likely, and, to them, the most tolerable, Democratic candidate.

I have a different take on it. The Republicans, far from conceding the next election, believe that they may have a plausible shot at winning. But to do so, the Democrats must nominate the weakest and most vulnerable candidate.

There are many compelling reasons why the front-running Democratic hopeful is also the most vulnerable.

Most significantly, among the general voting population Hillary Clinton has the highest disapproval ratings of all the Democratic candidates - in fact, according to a June Mason-Dixon poll, she is the only candidate of either party of for whom a majority (52%) have said that they would not consider voting. In addition, 42% reported an unfavorable opinion of Clinton, compared to 39% favorable; the only candidate with a net negative rating. These are devastating statistics which are unlikely to change significantly, since the public is by now well acquainted with Clinton. One would assume that such statistics would disqualify a candidate. However, the establishment Democrats who support Hillary are unperturbed.

READ MORE...

I have blogged about this before - ARE WE REALLY GOING TO LET REPUBLICANS AND THE REPUBLICAN-DRIVEN MEDIA PICK OUR CANDIDATE???