Hillary winning over New York Republicans?

I liked Bill Clinton. He had some problems in his personal life, but as President he was great. I believe him to be the second best President of the 20th century, in deference only to FDR.

And to that point, I like Hillary Clinton too. She's no nonsense and to the point, and she really is serious about working in a bipartisan manner to do what's right.

That being said, I have never really been excited by the idea of Senator Clinton running for President. The conventional wisdom has been that she is too polarizing a figure in American politics.

But today, I read a piece in The New York Times by Raymond Hernandez. Take a look:

As Clinton Wins G.O.P. Friends, Her Rivals' Task Toughens

The intimate gathering at a private home in Corning, N.Y., was pretty typical for an upstate fund-raiser featuring Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: dozens of donors clustered in the terrace, listening to her speak, as they sipped wine and nibbled on hors d'oeuvres.

But one thing made the event unusual: The host was a prominent Republican businessman whose brother Amo Houghton was the popular nine-term Republican congressman from the area who, it turns out, gives Mrs. Clinton, a Democrat, an "A-plus" for the job she is doing.

His brother James, chairman of Corning Inc., agreed. "When I introduced Hillary, I told the crowd that the last time a Houghton had a fund-raiser for a Democrat was about 1812," he said.

With her 2006 re-election campaign approaching, New York Republican leaders vow to rally party loyalists in a broad effort to topple Mrs. Clinton, who has long engendered deep antipathy on the right.

But as the fund-raiser last year in the heavily Republican town of Corning illustrated, the party may have a bit of a problem on its hands.

In the four years since taking office, Mrs. Clinton has managed to cultivate a bipartisan, above-the-fray image that has made her a surprisingly welcome figure in some New York Republican circles, even as she remains exceedingly popular with her liberal base.

A recent poll by The New York Times, for example, showed that Mrs. Clinton's popularity had sharply improved among Republicans voters surveyed, with 49 percent saying they approved of the job she was doing, compared with 37 percent who expressed similar sentiments in October 2002.

But perhaps nothing demonstrates her improved standing with the opposition as much as the close ties she has forged with many leading Republican officials in the state, who say that they have been pleasantly surprised by what they describe as the nuts-and-bolts pragmatism of her style.

Only five years ago, for example, Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of Buffalo mocked Mrs. Clinton as a "a tourist who has lost her way," alluding to the fact that she had not lived in New York before deciding to run for the Senate.

But these days, Mr. Reynolds, a Republican who is frequently mentioned as a possible candidate for speaker of the House, says he considers Ms. Clinton an ally in his effort to deliver aid to western New York.

In fact, he said that his work with Mrs. Clinton had prompted the local newspaper in his district to call them the "odd couple."

"I like Senator Clinton," said Mr. Reynolds, a friend and adviser to Gov. George E. Pataki. "I've found that when she says she will take on a job with me, she does it."

The rest of the article can be found here.

The reality is, a majority of women like her. Democrats like her. Independents like her. I like her.

I am a Howard Dean Democrat, and I think that the party spends too much time trying to work they're way to the middle. But, if Senator Clinton is who turns out to be our next Presidential Nominee, she has some great advantages.

She has instant name recognition.

She is a known quantity. No surprises from the past to allow the debate to switch rails into tabloid land.

Anyone who goes back after Whitewater, Murders, and Lesbianism will just look like a fruitcake at this point.

It was all just crap to begin with. Now we have the internet to do our research and the bloggers on both sides doing a fairly good job of fact checking the other side. That's a big deal.

Had the blogosphere been around in the mid 90's, The Clinton Chronicles would never have been taken seriously in the Wall Street Journal.

So, if that is how things play out, good. We're ready.

-The Oklahoma Hippy

*Just for the record, I find hysterical the idea that the website selling The Clinton Chronicles now is called "Christian Reality." The Klan and the World Church of the Creator think they live a christian reality too. There is just no limit to the way some can twist the bible into an instrument of hate.