Things may be looking grim for the GOP as of late, but there may be an Ace in the Hole that yet.

According to an insider poll leaked (heh) to the London Telegraph:

” A leaked Democratic poll has suggested that Hillary Clinton, the front runner in the race for the party’s presidential nomination, could lose the 2008 election because of her “very polarised image”.

The survey by the Democratic pollsters Lake Research indicated that both Mrs Clinton and Barack Obama, second in the Democratic race, trailed Rudy Giuliani, the Republican front runner, in 31 swing congressional districts.

The private memo, leaked to The Washington Post, painted what researchers described as a “sobering picture” for Democrats who believe that President George W Bush’s disastrous favorability numbers almost guarantee they will capture the White House next year.

All party preference polls show that Democrats are much more popular than Republicans. But when the names of individual candidates are used, the gap narrows considerably.

“The images of the two early [Democratic] favorites are part of the problem,” the memo said.

The leaked poll found that Mr Giuliani, a centrist Republican with liberal stances on issues such as abortion and gay rights, leads Mrs Clinton by 49 per cent to 39 per cent in the swing districts.

The former New York mayor enjoyed a much slimmer lead of just one per cent over Mr Obama in the poll, conducted in August. It has long been known that Mrs Clinton has “high negatives” among voters but the assessment of Mr Obama that his “image is soft, and one-fifth of voters do not gave a firm impression of him” was a surprise.

The poll found that Mrs Clinton, in particular, could damage the chances of congressional Democratic candidates on the ballot. The sensitivity of the issue was underlined by the reluctance of Democrats to discuss the survey.

“We’re not commenting on this poll,” said Daniel Gotoff, co-author of the memo accompanying the Lake Research poll. “It was leaked and obviously not by us.”

The fact that Hillary is the odds on favorite to win the nomination of her party is at this point a no brainer. But as I eluded to on many occasions there is a large “progressive” contingent in the US who feel that she would be even a greater disaster to Democrats than hubby Bill was. Just to recap what I mean consider this data via The Progressive Review:

“USA Today calls it “the hidden election,” in which nearly 7,000 state legislative seats are decided with only minimal media and public attention. But there was an important national story here: evidence of the disaster that Bill Clinton was for the Democratic Party. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats held a 1,542 seat lead in the state bodies in 1990. As of 1998 that lead had shrunk to 288. That’s a loss of over 1,200 state legislative seats, nearly all of them under Clinton. Across the US, the Democrats controled only 65 more state senate seats than the Republicans.

Further, in 1992, the Democrats controlled 17 more state legislatures than the Republicans. After 1998, the Republicans controlled one more than the Democrats. Not only was this a loss of 9 legislatures under Clinton, but it was the first time since 1954 that the GOP had controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats (they tied in 1968).

Here’s what happened to the Democrats under Clinton, based on our latest figures:

- GOP seats gained in House since Clinton became president: 48
- GOP seats gained in Senate since Clinton became president: 8
- GOP governorships gained since Clinton became president: 11
- GOP state legislative seats gained since Clinton became president: 1,254
as of 1998
- State legislatures taken over by GOP since Clinton became president: 9
- Democrat officeholders who have become Republicans since Clinton became
president: 439 as of 1998
- Republican officeholders who have become Democrats since Clinton became president: 3

In other words history could repeat. Consider what a Hillary Clinton Presidency would be like. You’ve got it, like it or not, unfinished business – and some Hsu-new business – will dog her term right into the ground.

The Clinton Machine can still control many parts of the MSM and therefore control the message, but with the blogs and especially overwhelming reach of conservative radio it’s not the 90s. It’s going to be a daily grind of rehashing the old, discovering the new and in the end Hillary will spend more time defending herself than anything else.

Additionally it’s likely voters will do what they did in 94 and attempt to rebalance the scales and return majorities to the GOP.

I have long said that the American people’s message in 94 and 96 by voting to keep GOP majorities is that they knew they had an out of control, but likable teen in the White House and like most teens a chaperone couldn’t hurt.

By and large Democrats are looking for a complete return to power – President, House and Senate. Nothing short of that will satisfy them. Getting elected to President Hillary could very well be the nail that closes chances for the Democrats for years to come.