“Every time you think, ‘Ok, when has she hit bottom?’ it feels like there’s a new bottom.” — Chuck Todd

David Freddoso – It’s panic time, and a great number of articles and television segments reflecting this were published even after this newsletter was being prepared at the end of last week.

For months, the Democratic Party’s rank and file has stood by Hillary Clinton. Her email scandal created enormous and noticeable public doubt about her honesty, and her poll numbers sagged in critical states for both the primary and the general election. But her supporters remained steadfast.

She was going to be the nominee, and there was little point in saying or speculating otherwise. In fact, any suggestion to the contrary was just plain counterproductive.

This attitude finally seems to be changing as it becomes clear that Clinton is in big trouble. We may be reaching the tipping point at which Democratic voters decide she is not just a scoundrel, but something far less tolerable — a loser.

Take, for example, a few of the most recent polls:

• The latest Washington Post poll has her at only 46 percent and leading Donald Trump by only three points nationwide.
• Clinton ties Trump, trails Ben Carson by five points, and trails Jeb Bush by two points nationwide in the latest CNN poll.
• She trails Trump by five points nationwide in a recent Survey USA poll.
• She trails Trump by five points and Jeb by 11 points in Iowa in the latest Marist poll.
• She trails Bush by five and Trump by one in New Hampshire, according to Marist.

These numbers are ominous for Clinton, especially when we add the customary disclaimer about her universal name recognition. As a candidate whom all the voters know already, she has little room to grow. Any result that puts her too far below 50 percent is quite bad, even if she happens to have a small lead. And there is no poll that shows her with a large general election lead.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden fares better in nearly every matchup — although he does not lead in all of  them.

We are now reaching the point where these polls are emboldening the Democratic opposition and challenging the faith of Hillary’s die-hard supporters. It is no coincidence that just as Clinton is looking like a less-than-inspiring general election candidate, both Bernie Sanders and Biden (still just a theoretical candidate) are surging in state and national primary polls. For example:

• Quinnipiac now has Sanders leading in Iowa by a hair.
• CBS/YouGov, though it uses a less reliable methodology, now has Sanders up 10 points in Iowa.
• Sanders continues to lead in New Hampshire by a much wider margin of nine points.
• As recently as June, Clinton led her Democratic rivals nationally by somewhere between 40 and 60 points. The latest CNN poll has her lead down to 10 points, with both Sanders and Biden exceeding 20 percent support.

The great fear for Democrats at the rank-and-file level is that they could end up stuck with an unelectable nominee. And this cuts more than one way. It may be that their two current choices are both unelectable — Clinton because she is perceived as untrustworthy and dishonest, and Sanders because he is just too far to the left politically. Continue reading . . .

SF Source Conservative Intel  Sep 2015