I always assumed it would be Jesse Ventura going up against Hillary in 2008. But, a more realistic guess would be Colin Powell.
Do you think the time has come for America to finally face the prospect of electing someone who isn’t a white male, as President?
Theoretically, if it did come down to Mr. Powell and Mrs. Clinton, who would pull more electoral votes? What about the popular vote?
Have fun,
TGD
Neither one is realistic. But Powell wins hands down if it happens.
I agree with minty. Neither one is going to run anytime soon, but if they did run in 2004, Powell is the winner. Hillary is still absolutely loathed by large segments of the population, both men and women, while Powell is largely respected by both sides of the aisle.
jayjay
I also see Powell winning such a contest, simply because nobody hates him as virulently as some quarters hate Hillary and as a result, it’ll be harder to spread and sustain wild slanderous rumours about him.
In practical terms, the only way a Powell/Clinton match in 2008 is possible is if GWB wins a second term. If he loses, whichever Democrat replaces him (I seriously doubt it could be Hillary in 2004) will be the incumbent in 2008. If Powell runs against that Dem in 2008, he would almost certainly win (it might be easy to think of a few Democrats who could take Bush, but popular enough to stand against Powell?). If Powell wins and goes against Hillary in 2012, he’ll destroy her.
I’d vote for him, myself, if I was American.
A few years ago now, when Powell was being courted as a potential presidential candidate, I believe he ultimately decided that he did not want to put his family through the hell that is a presidential election (or was that just "family value posturing for the future?
. And Hillary has a couple of things against her-her last name, and the fact that she is even a little too far to the left for a some democrats. I’d be surprised if the matchup came about.
But for the sake of the hypothetical OP, I’d have to say Powell. His name has a lot more positive equity to it than Hillary’s. Unfortunately, I don’t think we know Powell’s politics very well at this point, and Hillary DOES have the Clinton political campaign machine going for her.
Say what you must, but my vote would be for Ms. Clinton. I am still and will always be in support of a national health care system. Not only that, but I have to think that a woman president would have a calming effect on the American populace as well as the rest of the world.
Besides that, remember how much difficulty was encountered just to get Colin Powell to agree to participate in his present role. I don’t see Powell as a serious contender for the presidency.
My money would be on Hillary, particularly in 2008, as Powell would then be in his 70’s.
Of the major party nominees of the last 70 years, the three with the highest personal negatives were possibly Truman, Nixon and Bill Clinton. Personal atttacks from the right enemies can be great allies.
If George W. picks Condoleeza Rice for VP in 2004, there could very well be a Condi vs. Hillary in 2008. Who would you want as the first female president?
Hmm, Condi vs. Hillary…
Nah, no hot-oil rasslin’ images come to mind.
Given that choice, I’d recommend Hillary, mainly because Rice has zero experience with public office.
But again, I’m not an American.
Hillary would stomp all over Rice, but if Powell gets into the race, it’s his to lose. Even I’d vote for the guy. 
The real question IMO is whether or not Powell will pull a Jeffords-style defection in the interim. Everything I’ve heard says that he’s really chafing as the token moderate in Bush’s Conservative circle…
Hillary Clinton has many more advantages than the Cmoney machine:
She does her homework. Her every-county-in-New-York campaign helped put to rest the objections that she just moved there.
She can confidentially fight with the attitude that her enemies can’t do anything worse than what they have done to her family already.
She wasn’t declared one of the top 100 lawyers in America for nothing. If an election gets real close like in Florida, she will be a lot more persuasive than teh gore campaign was.
Powell is handicapped in that he is being leashed by Bush in this administration while Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Cheyney are dictating policy.
Rice would absolutely stomp Hillary, in my opinion. Hillary isn’t as good a politician as many make her out to be - she’s pulled a lot of boneheaded moves since being Senator. The other day was a good example - while other Democrats were very careful to say that they in no way believed Bush would ever refrain from defending Americans had he known what was happening, Hillary came out and help up a paper that had the headline, “Bush Knew”. That was a politically tone-deaf thing to do, and she’s taken a lot of heat for it from her own party as well as from Republicans.
But more to the point, Condi Rice is just far more qualified and impressive. While Hillary is smart, Condi Rice is a superstar. Her experience in the White House goes back to the Reagan administration. She’s one of those ultra-geniuses that also happens to be a world-class concert pianist. Brilliant. And she seems like a relative moderate in that she’s a Republican, but mildly pro-choice and not wedded to the ideological side of her party. She’d be an awesome candidate.
There’s another factor, which is that Rice is more presentable to the other side. Being a woman and black will actually gain her votes from Democrats and Independents, while Hillary’s negatives with Republicans and many Independants means it’ll be hard for her to break out of her core of support.
But hey, 2008 is a long way away. For all we know right now, the race will be between two people who we’ve barely heard about as of today.
I wouldn’t vote for Hillary, but I think she would win. She certainly did an effective job getting elected Senator, despite a number of disadvantgages.
Sorry, bare. I don’t think Mrs. Clinton has ever had a calming effect on anybody. She really pisses me off.
Why do you think a woman president is needed to calm us down? I don’t recall Margaret Thatcher having a calming effect on Britain, or Golda Meir on Israel.
I believe leadership skills are independent of sex, as do most people I know. I’d like to hear why you feel differently. Keep in mind that arguments for “emotional intelligence” and touchy-feely stuff like that plays to perceptions that have kept women out of office for a long time.
Regarding said leadership skills, I don’t think Hillary Clinton has any. Those you lead have to have confidence in you, and a large proportion of America doesn’t feel that way about Mrs. Clinton.
Ironically, I think HRC would be undone by her lack of “emotional intelligence” when it comes to politics. It seems like she can’t help but convey her sour, purse-lipped conviction that she should be Senator or President because she, personally, deserves it by virtue of her superior insight and education. That attitude would destroy her in Red America just as it did Algore.
Moreover, I don’t think she would really want to be president. Her role as Senator probably fulfills her need for influence and self-assertion without as much pressure for accountability. For the next twenty or thirty years she’ll stick around as the Baby Boomers’ version of Ted Kennedy.
Clinton comes across as a serious stick-in-the-mud and brittle, which are qualities that people don’t like to attribute to women. She’s smart, but evil smart. A true politician.
Powell has a lot of skeletons in the closet, though. I don’t think it would be hard for someone to dig up some subsurface dirt and shatter the perfect image of him that everyone clings to.
Plus, I don’t think America is ready to elect a black man. We might say we are right until election day, but I think the majority of us would change our minds real quick.
So it’s really hard to say.
Condi might seem like a good candidate, but she’s tarnished by being a part of the evil Reagan administration (and depending on what comes in the future, the current one as well) I know a lot of people think he was the best president ever (yuck), but from my point-of-view he was not. It may be enough to make me not want to vote for her. It depends on who she’s running against and what HER–not her party’s–platform is.
Not only that, but there has been some disquiet among the conservative bloggers and pundits concerning Powell’s effectiveness as Sec. of State, especially in the Middle East. He’s been painted as wobbly and indecisive, and it could/would alienate him from the Republican party.
It’s probably a given, then, that he wouldn’t be nominated in the first place. Condi Rice would probably have a much better reception–and as for being part of the “evil Reagan administration”, HA! Dour dumpy-legged nouveau riche whiners are still having trouble grasping the concept that voters don’t share their assessment of Reagan or any other president for the past thirty years.
Jibby7 wrote:
Her last name didn’t stop her husband from getting elected president. Twice.
You guys don’t give Hill enough credit. She beat everyone’s expectations (probably her own too) with her Senate run. She destroyed Lazio in the city, kept the 'burbs relatively competitive, and ran better than any other Democrat in the state could’ve upstate. Of all the Senate candidates in 2000, she probably ran the best campaign (Debbie Stabenow did pull one of the most impressive come-from behind victories in a long time, but that was mostly because she had dug her own hole). Still, New York is much more liberal than the rest of the nation, so pretty much any Republican would be able to beat Hillary. I’d wager more conservative members of the party with presidential aspirations like Bill Frist would beat her too.