TOP OF THE TICKET PROBLEM FOR DEMS?

Today, Hannity mentioned an AP report that Dems were worried that Hillary would be a drag on the ticket. He was referring to this article:

Clinton a Drag? Dems Fear Her Negatives
Aug 12 01:32 PM US/Eastern
By RON FOURNIER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Looking past the presidential nomination fight, Democratic leaders quietly fret that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the top of their 2008 ticket could hurt candidates at the bottom.

They say the former first lady may be too polarizing for much of the country. She could jeopardize the party's standing with independent voters and give Republicans who otherwise might stay home on Election Day a reason to vote, they worry.

In more than 40 interviews, Democratic candidates, consultants and party chairs from every region pointed to internal polls that give Clinton strikingly high unfavorable ratings in places with key congressional and state races.

Almost a year ago, I was involved in a GOTV campaign for the Dems and a few incidents have stuck in my mind. One was a middle-aged woman telling me that she couldn't vote for Hillary. Because that wasn't an issue at the time, I didn't pursue the matter with her but now I worry that there are too many Dems who feel that way. So far, she's doing well among the Democrats, so perhaps my fear is unjustified but McClatchy points out that Democratic males aren't too keen on her:

A July poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers by the University of Iowa found that Clinton had 30 percent support among women and 18 percent among men. By comparison, there was no difference in gender support for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who got 21 percent from both men and women.

The same poll found that 32 percent of women strongly agreed that Clinton was electable, while only 14 percent of men did. And 30 percent of women strongly agreed that Clinton was the Democrats' strongest candidate, while only 17 percent of men did.

[snip]

In a general election however, it could be a major problem, because men traditionally vote for Republicans at a higher rate than women vote for Democrats.

Fournier quotes a Southern Democrat:

"The argument with Hillary right now in some of these red states is she's so damn unpopular," said Andy Arnold, chairman of the Greenville, S.C., Democratic Party. "I think Hillary is someone who could drive folks on the other side out to vote who otherwise wouldn't."

"Republicans are upset with their candidates," Arnold added, "but she will make up for that by essentially scaring folks to the polls."

Todd Beeton at MyDD sees this as a question of who has the bigger base:

Certainly Clinton does have extraordinarily high unfavorables among Republicans -- the latest Gallup Poll has her at -71 net favorability. But the other side of this coin is an equally strong net favorability among Democrats: +71%. And current party ID numbers show Democrats with a 15 or so advantage, including leaners. So, couldn't a Hillary Clinton nomination just as easily rally our base FOR her and, by extension, all Democrats on the ticket?

I am annoyed at the claim that Hillary is polarizing because it was the vicious lies and smears by the GOP Noise Machine that is mostly responsible for that. In a better world, the GOP would not benefit from this but that will depend on how Hillary responds to the smears and how our base will energized by the hate from the Right.