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Clinton's lead is sweeping, but not clinched

Her campaign manager says as the nominee she could win over many GOP women.

from the October 19, 2007 edition

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Iowa, in short, could once again derail the national front-runner's juggernaut.

But Clinton is still fighting the inevitability label. And her opponents are using it for their own purposes. The Obama campaign sent out an e-mail to supporters Thursday with a one-word subject line: "Inevitable?" It was an appeal for cash, aimed at provoking Obama supporters over the idea that somehow Clinton has the nomination locked up. The night before, appearing on "The Tonight Show," Obama took a dig at Clinton: "Hillary is not the first politician in Washington to declare 'mission accomplished' a little too soon."

For the Republicans, building up Clinton as the likely nominee may also be good for fundraising. Many Republicans have a visceral dislike for her, and even if the GOP is having a hard time coalescing around one of their own in the nomination race, there's little doubt that running against Clinton in the general election will give Republicans an extra jolt. Head-to-head matchups between Clinton and the top Republicans show a tight race, with Clinton currently slightly ahead.

Clinton herself has betrayed a sense that she believes she'll be the nominee, by taking key stands aimed more at a general election audience than the primaries. Most recently, she voted in favor of declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, the only Democratic candidate to do so – and a move that seemed to echo her 2002 vote authorizing war with Iraq.

Even as she insists she's taking nothing for granted, there are other signs that work in Clinton's favor. She is famously disciplined and so cannot be counted on to make a major mistake between now and the first vote. And Obama has put himself in a bind by establishing his brand as "a new kind of politics." So every time he goes negative, Clinton takes the high ground and wins.

"It's likely she'll be the nominee, but strange things can happen in Iowa," says Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

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