34% say country would be better off under Hillary Clinton: poll
By Kase Wickman
Friday, September 16th, 2011 -- 3:33 pm
More than a third of Americans said that if Hillary Clinton had been elected president in 2008, the country would be in better shape than it is right now under President Barack Obama's leadership.
The Bloomberg poll showed that Clinton, currently serving as secretary of state, garnered a 64 percent favorability rating, making her the most popular national politician in the country.
Thirty-four percent expressed wishful thinking about a Clinton presidency, up from the 25 percent who responded the same in July 2010.
In the 2008 election, Obama won the majority of delegates necessary to clinch the Democratic nomination after the primaries. During the drawn-out primary battle, Clinton actually won the popular vote, though Obama won 29 states to her 21.
Only 13 percent of respondents said that things would be worse under a Clinton White House.
It's not just Democrats expressing buyers' remorse either: 39 percent of Republicans said that Clinton would run the country better than Obama has.
“Some of her appeal is that she is not Barack Obama,” said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., the group that conducted poll.
No matter what the public's opinion of her, any wishful thinking will remain a fantasy.
“It’s below zero,” Clinton told CNN when asked about the chance of her challenging Obama in 2012. “One of the great things about being secretary of state is I am out of politics. I am not interested in being drawn back into it by anybody.”
