New York Senator and presidential wannabee Hillary Clinton, is focused on convincing Democratic primary voters that she can overcome her high unfavorables.
Hillary's campaign is "deep into a concerted, poll-tested effort to portray her as both Midwestern family woman and accomplished national leader instead of a lightning rod for ceaseless political warfare:
Clinton's carefully polished appearances on the campaign trail and her early reliance on biographical videos and networks of female supporters are all part of a larger strategy battle-tested in upstate New York during two winning Senate campaigns. The aim is to cut against the grain of the known Hillary Clinton, recasting her stereotyped reputation for polarizing harshness and political calculation, aiming at voters who are dubious about her but are not partisan enemies.
The Hillary juggernaut finds her Senate races instructive. In Clinton's 2000 Senate race, psychologists hired by Clinton's campaign were startled by the intense anger she aroused among middle-aged and older suburban female voters. The campaign was able to change enough minds that beat her Republican opponent by 20 percentage points among female voters.
Even as she remains the front runner for the Democratic nomination, Hillary retains the highest unfavorable ratings among surveys of potential general election voters and in polling among likely Democratic voters. Her unfavorable ratings in recent national polls have ranged in the mid-40 to low-50 percent among likely general election voters:
In a mid-April Gallup/USA Today poll, Clinton was rated favorable by 45% of American respondents and unfavorable by 52%. Clinton's two main rivals, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, fared better, with 52% favorable ratings — and with 27% unfavorable for Obama and 31% for Edwards. Clinton's standing improved in May, when the same polling organization found her favorability rose to 53% and unfavorable dropped to 45%. But in June her numbers reversed, as 46% declared their approval and 50% found her unfavorable.
Among Democrats, polls find Hillary's 28 percent disapproval rating is about twice that found for Edwards and Obama.
Hillary's negative numbers, higher than similar numbers for failed Democratic presidential candidates Kerry and Gore, have to give rise to the questions of Hillary's electability.
To try to overcome her unacceptably high negatives, the Hillary campaign includes targeted biographical bullet-points into mailers and website promos, aimed at recasting the New York senator's image.
It is a delicate task for her and her handlers — humanizing her edges without blurring the campaign's simultaneous effort to portray her as a super-capable, seasoned centrist, an inevitable front-runner.
The "concerted, poll-tested" campaign to reinvent Hillary tries to portray the extremely ambitions power seeker as a selfless public servant. Hillary as a public service was a main thread of her Web video narrated by President Clinton that utilized an image of the Blessed Mother Teresa in an "inappropriate, disrespectful and disturbing" manner.
Another thread of this make over is an attempt to deceive voters into perceiving Hillary as a heartland pragmatist, "born into a middle-class family in the middle of America," instead of the left wing liberal her voting record reveals.
These deceptive reinvention themes will be featured in Hillary's coming wave of ads.
Hillary, like most liberal politicians, understands that liberals can't win unless they can fool the voters as to what they are really for - tax and spend big-government controlling evermore aspects of American life.
It may be very hard to make a second first impression, but that's what Hillary is trying to do to succeed in her continuing quest for power.
UPDATE: More at The Influence Peddler.
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