Hillary is getting a lot of love and hate in the Fray. (Particularly in the post-debate chatter)As some of you may know, I’m writing a series called the Big Question on the candidates. The big question as I’ve tentatively framed it for Hillary is: does she have a likeability problem. Is she too polarizing to win? For some people even asking this question is enraging. They either hate the fact that a candidate’s entire person is being boiled down to one question or they think asking about likeability is silly in a dangerous world. George Bush was the guy people supposedly wanted to have a beer with and look where that got us. Others may think there are other questions for Hillary. Can a woman win, for example, might be the question a lot of people would ask.

I’m interested in your reactions both about the core question: is she too polarizing? If so, why? If not, why not. Anyone out there who has changed their mind about Senator Clinton? Why? Does her husband help her overcome the likeability question the way MVPeach10 suggested? Feel free to fire-away on those other issues if you’re interested. I would say in pre-rebuttal that the question of likeability comes up in EVERY Hillary conversation I have—with elites and with regular voters on the campaign trail. (Others like SarasotaHugh offered a visceral assessment I’ve heard a lot from Democrats: “I can't stand listening to her. Her voice cuts through me like a buzz saw.) There’s also ample polling on this issue. This phenomenon is not merely a press creation (though surely we go overboard). Many voters love love love Hillary Clinton but a lot of others have serious issues with her-- how real they are and can views be changed.

I’m looking forward to your thoughts.

Once again, the people who hate her fear her and they fear her because they can't stop her. Hence this petty, visceral hatred that pops up. For example I dislike Nancy Reagan, always have. I think the same of her as these people do of Hillary, but I've never given her that much thought to damn her with my every breath. She simply does'nt take up that much of my conciousness. Thevery fact that Hillary's detractors do this so vociferously, attests to the immense fear she generates in them. I think she is the most presidential of any of the candidates, but she is not the only qualified candidate. I think "likeability" is just another 'Reich-Ving" strawman set up for divisionary purposes, like "gay marriage" or "flag-burning" It is the way they deal with issues they cannot face directly. They demonize it, then offer a "pseudo-choice".

Love her or hate her - there aren't too many people left undecided. While she may have a lot of support within the Democratic Party (?), she's dead on arrival in the General Election.

Conservatives have a deep seeded, visceral hate of Hilary Clinton, and if she wins the nomination they will do everything in their power to see that she doesn't win. She'll have more positive effect on the GOP fundraising efforts than the GOP candidate will.

My point is that her support outside the party is marginal at best, and will erode quickly once the mud starts flying. As we all know, the independent swing voters usually decide elections, and I'm betting there isn't a lot of them whose minds could be changed.

Only one in four independents like her according to the latest Newsweek poll.

Well, as I've stated elsewhere, I don't hate her, but I don't think she's a good candidate. Is she too unlikeable to be elected -- I think my answer to that would be "yes." Is she too polarizing to be elected, my answer would be "maybe." There are those on the right who have the visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton described above. I'm not one of them, although I admit I pretty much had that kind of visceral reaction to her husband. Hillary has, however, has disadvantages of her own as a candidate, and her general lack of being likeable is a big one.

This is lost to time, except for historians and other deviants like myself. Thomas E. Dewey was a shoo-in to win the 1948 presidential election. He was favored in all the polls. Harry S. Truman, the Democrat and incumbent, had poll rating as low as George W. Bush's, and was facing a challenge from the "Dixiecrats" who didn't favor his beginning steps toward integration. There was no way the incumbent would be returned to office.

And then the worm turned. Dewey, apparently a firey orator in the courtroom, came off as cold and distant in public. An accident in which he was jolted by an errant train movement while speaking from the back of a rail car led him to say the engineer should be "shot at dawn" -- he came off as unsympathetic.

Truman, not a great orator but great with people, went on his famous whistle stop tour. He won the public over as a "popular populist" (not as common a political animal as one would think). The result is the famous photo of Truman standing on a rail car holding a big Chicago Tribune newspaper with the headline saying "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" after the results were in showing that Truman had defeated Dewey. Likeablity counts.

She is a political light weight without one thought that is actually her own. Everything she does, everything she says is scripted to the point of being maddening. Her attempts to "get to know the voters and them know her" ring false, cold and mechanical. With her shreiking oratory she cuts through the country like a plague of populist crap.

Everyone always asked, "what has she done that people hate her so much"... that is a very good question, other then being the wife of a lousy president what has she done?

I can honestly say for NY, and in particular upstate NY. The answer is NOTHING accept use being "Senator from NY" to launch her Presidential Campaign.

"a political light weight without one thought that is actually her own." Right Idea..wrong candidate. You must be thinking of the guy in power NOW...except HE can'e even read a script. If you guys spent as much time on your candidate field as you do on ours...you MIGHT have somebody to run.

"I can honestly say for NY, and in particular upstate NY. The answer is NOTHING accept use being "Senator from NY" to launch her Presidential Campaign."

Unless your using "mayor"...

how sad is that.

My wife and I have been talking a lot about the Presidential field lately. Last saturday we had a big discussion about Hillary versus Rudy. She just couldn't see how anyone would vote for Rudy. I kept telling her that Hillary has been the Wicked Witch of the East in conservative circles for so long that the people who voted for Bush would vote for Rudy (despite his liberal views on several social issues) because they really don't like her. Sure enough we decided to settle this by asking a friend who we were about to have lunch with. He is a west texas good ol boy (my wife is from NYC and I'm liberal in my own right). When asked who would you vote for Rudy or Hillary without missing a beat said Rudy, and then made me laugh by saying "I didn't know he was running." (He's politically acute).

My wife and I both like Hillary. We pine for Gore, but unless he jumps in, we figure she is the candidate that best meets our needs as voters. I think that Hillary knows that she has a likeability problem. And I think she is holding back some, and trying to soften her image. That YouTube video asking for help choosing a campaign song may seem corny, but she knows that she'll need to do that sort of thing to humanize her.

But this election in 2008 is different, in my opinion, than 2000. This election is about serious issues, and I think America will look past likeability in favor of competence. 2000 was on the tail end of the 1990s, we didn't have a care in the world. I'm sure if a member on N'Sync had run for Congress there would be even money Rep. Timberlake from Orlando would have been a reality. 2008 is in my mind much more like 1968. We have an unpopular war going on and a sense that our current administration is incompetent. People then chose Nixon who was less likeable than Humphrey, but people had a real sense that Nixon was comptent to lead. I think that if Hillary taps that strategy of "I'm a good choice for President because I'll make smart decisions and listen to smart people, and we can have a plan for peace" then I think she can overcome the likeability question.

Hillary is dishonest to the core, she's unlikable, she's a terrible orator, she's ruthlessly deceitful, she a hyperwealthy elitist snob masquerading as a caring advocate for the poor, she has no political conscience and she will say or do anything to get herself elected President. She is a hard core socialist who shamelessly uses highly divisive "Robinhood" class warfare as a political tool. Worst of all, she's a self-righteous demagogue on the war in Iraq who will readily compromise America's national security to further her personal political ambitions. Fortunately she is married to "Wild" Bill "Bubba" Clinton who has been travelling the country making $40 million on a speaking tour that includes regular sex romps with babes all over the country. Hillary's whole campaign is perpetually a colossal bimbo eruption away from a complete collapse. The big mystery is whether the democrats blow her up before the nomination or wait for the republicans to do it in October 2008. She's got my vote in the democrat primary!!

I go back to her husband's first term in office when she attempted successfully to oust the travel office in place to benefit one of her friend/benefactors. The problem for Hillary arose when it was discovered that she had engineered accusations of criminal behavior against the incumbents that later turned out to be unfounded.

That image ( of one who will do whatever to advance her own goals regardless of the damage to others) has stuck; even with those who don't know the particulars of that story. When the story is told, listeners believe it because it fits.

She is not likable and is not likely to be because, frankly, she isn't and what is (or isn't) is (or isn't.)

In 2004 I had recently re-registered as a democrat and was working as a volunteer for the Kerry campaign. I found myself sitting in a bar, after an evening of phone banking, with a few folks from the national campaign. These were the people paid by the DNC or the national Kerry Campaign to work in our state. I sat and listened to them talk about how much they disliked working for Hilary. Their stories were of a rude and tempermental individual who didn't seem to have any idea of being grateful for the people who did the work of getting her elected. They all said that they would not work on a campaign for her in the future.

I'm not sure what that means in the grand scheme of things. Are there enough professional campaign workers to help her get elected, in spite of the opinions of those who already know her? Probably. Has she changed to avoid alienating her staff. Maybe. Will she revert to her dark side if there is a bad week on the campaign trail?

Time will tell.

She does tend to polarize a bit. I think a lot of those who support her are wanting to get Bill Clinton back, even though that is not what they are getting. Her answer in the debate as to how she would use him in her administration, saying she would send him all over the world on foreign relations missions, should tell people she isn't going to keep him close and do what he would do.

She has no intentions of being Bill. She isn't going to go to him for every word she will say and every decision she will make. People need to wake up and realize exactly who they are electing. I wouldn't elect Bill, either, but I know Hillary and Bill are completely different.

Hillary doesn't belong running the country. She isn't the right person for the job.

She isn't all that qualified. She isn't the best available choice by a longshot. Biden, Obama and Edwards all beat her hands down. Being in charge of decorating the White House previously doesn't make her ready to be president. If it did, Laura Bush would be just as qualified. Neither is up to the task.

You have a strange idea of what is presidential. She seems canned, inflexible, unthinking and plastic to me. I know, I know, I hate her viscerally because I am "Reich Ving" somehow, even though I am fed up with both parties. That is your standard excuse for Hillary.

Problem is, she has already told us she will listen to not so smart people if they are being smart about what is politically expedient. That is how she made the HUGE mistake of voting for the Iraq War. She has the added liability of not even admitting it was a mistake, as Edwards did.