How Hillary could tank

From hubby Bill's uncharted role to the Karl Rove factor to her scattered hawkish votes, the top 10 reasons why Clinton could take a fatal dive in the '08 race.

By Walter Shapiro

Read more: Democratic Party, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Iran, Politics, News, Walter Shapiro, Iraq, John Edwards, Barack Obama, 2008 election

Oct. 16, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- It is a paradox of the presidential primary season: Democratic voters -- and, yes, reporters -- claim to crave a wide-open, spirited fight for the nomination, yet simultaneously are eager to pronounce the race over before a single vote has been cast. From Ed Muskie in 1972 to Howard Dean four years ago, history should have taught handicappers that betting the mortgage money on the odds-on favorite is a mug's game.

Hillary Clinton is the latest beneficiary of this premature rush to certainty. Clinton's meet-her-again-for-the-first-time rollout has softened her image, repositioned her as the Democrats' most experienced candidate, airbrushed away her years of ambivalence on the Iraq war and turned her 1994 healthcare reform debacle into a scars-to-prove-it asset. At the same time, her campaign has shown uncharacteristic flashes of boldness from small matters (putting together a "Sopranos" parody video in a week, featuring Bill and Hillary) to large (matching John Edwards with a full-coverage-for-everyone healthcare plan).

All this has led to the latest episode of I-is-for-Inevitability. Despite the growing (and, in some cases, the grudging) sense that the former first lady's nomination is preordained and the primaries mere formalities, Clinton still must avoid a dirt-road-in-rainy-season ration of potholes on the way to the Denver Convention. Here are 10 factors that could permanently postpone the Hillary-for-president balloon drop:

1) When bad things happen to good candidates
Since James Monroe's "Era of Good Feeling" romp to reelection in 1820, front-runners have all endured a week, a month or an eternity when the media mood shifts and the polls plummet. Despite a few notes of skepticism in the spring when Barack Obama first displayed his fundraising prowess, Clinton has yet to go through even a single bad-hair day.

Something will inevitably arise to remind voters of her vulnerabilities. It could be, say, a maladroit response to a voter's question, a new fundraising scandal or an effective attack ad targeting her. The best justification for the endless campaign season is that it replicates (as much as anything possibly can) the stresses of actually serving in the White House. Some candidates -- Dean, for example -- never recover from their first crisis, while others -- like Bill Clinton in 1992 -- thrive on them.

Up to now, the Democratic debates have been as decorous as a student-council election in a 1950s sitcom. That will change as the time grows short -- and Clinton's challengers grow desperate. Until the New York senator stares down a roomful of rivals on the attack, or glares her way through a media feeding frenzy, she is not ready to be crowned as the 2008 nominee.

2) Political calendar choler
The order of the early caucuses and primaries can set Clinton up for a string of stinging setbacks. Her weakest state, at the moment, is Iowa where the opening-gun caucuses play a disproportionate role in shaping the contours of the contest. Clinton is locked in a three-way battle with Edwards and Obama in this state of notorious late-deciders who can stampede away from the favorite in, well, a New York minute.

A memo put out by the Obama campaign last week argues that the race is close in Iowa "not because it's the one state in the union immune to Senator Clinton appeal. It is because voters are paying close attention ... As other early states get more engaged, we will see a much closer race."

Handicapping Iowa at this stage is nearly impossible. Polls have the accuracy of a blunderbuss, in part because there is no certainty how many Iowa Democrats will actually attend the caucuses. Private estimates from campaign officials range from 125,000 (roughly the 2004 turnout) to a historic high of 200,000. Pollster Mark Blumenthal on his blog points out, "Since late July, we have seen 13 different Democratic polls in Iowa taken by 11 difference pollsters. Each pollster does things differently, so we have 11 different conceptions of 'likely caucus-goers.'"

What this means, in reality, is that Hillary Clinton could easily finish second and conceivably even third in Iowa. Potentially dragging her down is a quirk in Iowa Democratic rules that encourages backers of candidates with less than 15 percent support at a caucus site to switch to another contender. The best guess is that these second-choice voters are more likely to go to, say, Edwards or Obama than Clinton.

If that happens, "Hillary in Trouble" becomes a major headline coming out of Iowa. Virtually all current polls give Clinton a 2-to-1 lead in New Hampshire, but it is too soon to pronounce these numbers definitive. Most Granite State voters remain up for grabs -- a CNN-WMUR poll in late September found that 55 percent of New Hampshire Democrats are still trying to decide on a candidate.

In theory -- though it has not been demonstrated by his campaign so far -- Obama should be the ideal New Hampshire candidate. The state has a long history of opting for soft-spoken reformers running against the anointed favorite: Gary Hart (1984), Paul Tsongas (1992) and even Bill Bradley (2000), who came within less than 7,000 votes of pulling off a major upset against Al Gore.

After New Hampshire, the Democratic race may be quickly redefined as Clinton vs. the anti-Hillary. Especially if the alternative is Obama, he will have the money and the momentum to battle the former first lady in the next primary state, South Carolina, with its heavy concentration of African-American voters. All this sets up a scenario under which Clinton loses the nomination in the simplest fashion possible -- by failing to win an early state.

3) The Bill comes due
The wild-card factor in 2008 is the most important political spouse in American history. Bill Clinton has bequeathed his wife experience by association and has revived talk of the "Buy One, Get One Free" deal originally offered the voters in 1992.

But the ex-president in the past has also (how can we put this delicately?) displayed a predilection for creating soap-opera moments unrelated to his policy-wonk side. The unprecedented financial questions raised by his frenetic speechmaking and his fundraising for his foundation and library also could become an issue in the closing weeks of the campaign. In short, even if the nation is freed from any more fervid discussions of "the Clinton marriage," the 42nd president's role in the 44th president's White House may give Democrats pause when it is time to actually vote.

Next page: Hillary the war hawk