Mine did too. It’s not that important to me how someone comes to the right opinion.
She knows enough to realize when she’s in a fight and can and will punch back. Unlike George McFly Obama, she’d stand up to Ted Cruz when he tries to give her a wedgie.
She may not be as liberal as I would like, but dammit she can win and win big enough to carry a Democratic majority into Congress. Maybe someday we can get a real liberal in there, but for now let’s content ourselves with keeping the far right out of the White House.
She’s the one who is high-profile and certain to run. Almost no one else is there this early. It’ll get divided and weird in another 6 or 8 months.
I happen to think honesty is the best policy.
I remember during Clinton’s campaign when a (Democratic, I believe) poster here said that he/she had no doubt that if a poll showed the public wanted Cap’n Crunch for president, Hillary would be out campaigning the next day in a captain’s hat.
There are things I like about Mrs. Clinton. There is one aspect of her, perfectly illustrated by this, that worries me greatly.
I understand that pandering is part of the political process, but I really prefer leadership and courage.
I’ll vote for her if she gets the nominiation, and probably even send her some money to help the effort, but I’m not excited about the prospect. To answer the OP, it is really important to keep Republicans out of the Whitehouse. She currently looks like the best chance to do that. I’m open to alternatives.
Being against gay marriage is worse than being for gay marriage. I don’t care if one comes to the first position “honestly” and their opponent comes to the second position “dishonestly”, I’m still going to support the one that’s for gay marriage (all else being equal).
A Republican pathologizing the Clintons? Well, they’ve never been wrong before!
So you’ve discounted Jeb?
I like to think about how the Tea Party nutjobs would collectively lose their shit if she was the candidate, mostly because they’ll expect her to find some way to step aside and let Bill be President, followed by an embarrassed look on most of the non-nutjob Republicans (“Why did we want these guys on our side, again?”).
It’s her centrist politics that make her electable. If she tacks too far to the left, she risks losing the center to a centrist Republican. (That might seem unlikely now, but it’s better to know your weaknesses.) And while a more leftist Democrat could likely still win, it’s better for a more centrist Democrat to win by more, in order to get bigger coattails into Congress.
My major concern about her is her age. And that is how smart Republicans will attack her, because it’s new and hard to defend against. It’ll only take a few “senior moments” for a too-old narrative to be painted on her. Given the rigors of a presidential campaign, that will be tough.
If (and it’s a big “if”) Republicans select a youngish Republican (mid 40s or younger), who does not cater to the right wing (rejects Tea Party stupidity), and has some clearly centrist politics (calls ACA a fait accompli and suggests some improvements), they will win the presidency over a Democrat who is old or too far from the center.
Please note that I am a centrist Republican who has been voting for Democrats in state and federal offices because they better represent me. I recognize that my politics is my bias. 
Well, she’s nine years younger than John McCain, so I’m not sure why that’d be an issue…
I also think that it is currently more a media obsession than a Democratic obsession.
But, to find some model that might make sense to a Republican reading this: I recall when George W first appeared on the scene. I was fascinated at the momentum that he was able to gain as it appeared to me to be PRIMARILY just his family name. Yes, he was a Governor, but he really didn’t have a national profile yet. So, I would have asked at the time, “Explain the Republican obsession with George W?”
All that said, I don’t really think further comparison with the George W obsession holds. Hillary has been a national figure for twenty-some years. By any objective measure she has built a resume that would put her at the forefront even if she had not run before. And, similar to the pattern with Republicans, she came in a strong 2nd last time so it’s “her turn”. Every party want to back a winner.
Personally, I have said here before, I am deeply troubled by political dynasties in the USA. She is inevitably a corporatist and a reflexive politician. I would love for there to be a strong contender against her in the Democratic party, with the chops to lead and the huevos to fight. But I’m not seeing it. Biden? snrk
I don’t think you’re totally wrong here, but a better word than “unlikely” would be “nigh-unimaginable.”
Most districts are so partisan today that the idea of coattails might be outdated.
I’m pretty liberal but I’ll vote against her every chance I get, until she runs against a Republican. I don’t actively dislike her, but I don’t think she’s a good candidate and sheer hatred of her is going to mobilize the Right more than even Obama’s election did. She’s too old, IMHO, and I’m not a fan of dynastic presidencies anyway. I don’t want the list of presidents from 1988-2020 or 2024 (32, maybe 36 years!) to be
Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Obama-Obama-Clinton-Clinton
At best, that’s unimaginative. But the real danger is that having the White House go back and forth between two families for a generation really creates an elite group of insiders, regardless of part affiliation. We need some new names in there.
She has the best chance of winning and won’t play as nice as Obama, what’s not to like?
McCain lost to vibrant younger politician, promising change after eight years of one party in the White House.
Hillary’s age is not a show-stopper, but it is a weakness.
I’m not so sure. The archetypical gerrymander is to spread out your voters so you have small majorities in many districts while your opponents have large majorities in a few districts. This changes the dynamics but does not remove coattail effects.
For example, Ohio’s districts are at 14,9,9,8,8,6,6,5,5,5,3,2,-12,-14,-15,-30 points in favor of the Republicans. If a Democrat winning the White House has a coattail of biasing districts by 3 points, they’ll win 2 extra seats. If the coattails are 6 points, they’ll win 7 extra seats. In a landslide with 9-point coattails, the Democrat will bring along 11 extra seats. Going the other way, a Republican president with coattails of 3, 6 or even 9 points brings no extra seats.
The gerrymandering improves results for the Republicans in a typical year, but risks giving up a lot of seats to marginal gains by the Democrats. Even slight shifts toward the center-right can gain the Democrats a lot of seats in Congress. And that is why Democrats need to be careful about moving away from the center. (I hope Nate Silver does a marginal gain analysis sometime.)
There’s always someone who sums up in one succinct sentence what it took me a rambling paragraph to say!
IOW, she is a politician.
The problem I have with lying politicians is when they lie to their constituents and have no intention of keeping election promises, or play games behind the scenes to the detriment of the people they’re supposed to represent. Crafting your public statements for maximum appeal on insubstantive matters is just realpolitik. So she’s wealthy, and tried to play it down. Is that worse than state governors turning down free expanded Medicare and letting people die because it conforms to their lunatic ideology? Maybe some perspective is needed here.
I shall prepare myself for four to eight years of “Why won’t Hillary lead?” headlines.
I think the Bush name has been too tarnished, even in Republican eyes, by W.'s abysmal performance for Jeb to stand any real chance, yes. But even if I am wrong about that, and the Bushes still have some play left in them, it does not invalidate my point about royalty. You’re just setting up for a dynastic struggle instead of single dynasty (with the Clinton family having inherited the mana of the Kennedys).
IS there such a thing anymore?
Seriously, can anyone name a viable candidate that hasn’t run to the extreme right?
Maybe I’m not getting it, but how would Hillary Rodham Clinton being elected President be any sort of a dynasty? If Hillary Rodham had married Bill Gates rather than Bill Clinton, I still think she would have gone on into a career in politics.
I highly doubt that Governor George Walker of Texas would have been a serious candidate for President with his record. However, George Walker Bush had the benefit of being born to George H. W. Bush. That’s more of what I consider a dynasty, especially the bad part of dynasties, when someone with nothing but a name gets a position they don’t deserve.