It is widely accepted that HRC is a polarizing candidate unpopular with vast segments of American, such as residents of the Western mountain region. A Hillary nomination would threaten recent inroads made by democrats in that traditionally republican region. This article explores the phenomenon in greater depth:
Yet, as he prepares to run for a fifth term next year, Baucus is entering treacherous territory. Despite recent gains by Democrats in the Rocky Mountain West, party officials across the region are increasingly anxious that their congressional candidates may get dragged under by Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.
The New York senator and Democratic front-runner was by a wide margin the most unpopular of 13 potential presidential candidates in Montana, according to a June survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research for the Billings Gazette; 61% said they would not consider voting for her, compared with 49% who would not vote for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and 45% who would not vote for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. The most unpopular Republican candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, was rejected by 51%.
Recent polls in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona have found similar distaste for Clinton.
"She's carrying huge negatives out here," said Floyd Ciruli, an independent Colorado pollster who said Democratic congressional candidates would have to highlight their differences with the national party to be successful next year. "It's that liberal East Coast image that is so hard to sell in the West."
One key advisor to a prominent Democratic congressional candidate, who asked not be to identified discussing tensions within the party, went even further. "It's a disaster for Western Democrats," he said. "It keeps me up at night."
An HRC nomination will set the party back years in this region. Not only would it mobilize the anti-Hillary faction, it would nullify any advantage of the GOP nominating New Yorker, Giuliani. As the article explains:
Republicans, who have lost ground across the Mountain West for two election cycles, have challenges of their own. President Bush and the war in Iraq remain deeply unpopular. The GOP presidential nominee may also be an East Coast politician: former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
And although most states in the region will probably back the Republican presidential candidate, Democrats appear to have the momentum. The party has picked up seats in Congress in four of the last five elections. And it controls governors' mansions in five of the eight states of the inland West; in 2000, it was zero.
Let's back a candidate who transcends the red state / blue state paradigm and reaches into new demographics. Deomcrats can't afford to neglect the big picture thru another election cycle.