Does Hillary Measure Up?

Maureen Dowd and Margaret Carlson seem to feel the need to defend Hillary from a recent remark that she is an angry person, and accuse Republicans of being anti-women and picking on her. What a couple of whiners.

On ABC's "This Week'' on Feb. 5, all RNC chairman Ken Mehlman said was that Hillary Clinton "seems to have a lot of anger'' and that "voters usually do not send angry candidates to the White House.''

This is not something unique to Hillary or the upcoming race. One question pollsters always ask voters is whether they think a candidate is "likeable".

Republicans know that usually the more cheerful candidate wins the Presidency.

And Republicans know they usually have to be cheerful to win. Democrats promise a chicken in every pot, no problem. Republicans promise responsible government and need that smile to sweeten the message.

Take Kennedy over Nixon, (OK then Nixon beat Humphrey, but that's because George Wallace took Democrat votes from Humphrey, and the next time round Nixon beat McGovern in a landslide---McGovern was pathetic) Next Carter beats Ford. (Remember Carter was always smiling, we just didn't know what a petty, mean guy he was then, blaming us for his "Crisis of Confidence".)

Then came Ronald Reagan, possibly the most genuinely cheerful President in history. Positively sunny with optimism. The gold standard of likeability.

Reagan beat Carter and then Mondale (who had the wit to laugh at Reagan's jokes.)

Bush one over Dukakis (Kindler, gentler vs. wears wingtips while jogging)

Clinton over Bush one---hard to compete with the Hollywood Man from Hope

Clinton over Dole---ditto

W over Gore ("no controlling legal authority")

W over Kerry (off skiing somewhere)

Even if you didn't read the stories about lamps crashing in the White House, or see Hillary's version of the Howard Dean primal scream at one of her campaign rallies, if you've observed her at all, you know.

Hillary is an angry person. Her liberal supporters like that anger--they're angry too, so for them it's a positive. For the rest of us it's a negative.

Even when she laughs she sounds angry. It's usually to deflect a question she doesn't want to answer.

Call it the "pretty in pink" laugh after her notorious press conference when she didn't recall anything about her Whitewater land deals, her windfall cattle futures' profits, her law firm's missing billing records, etc.

As for this being a Republican strategy, who knows, but she is well-known to voters and the latest polls bear out that she is a polarizing figure with high negatives.

So let's not have a separate standard for Hillary. Likeability is a fair measure of a candidate.

Bill certainly benefited from it.

Can Hillary measure up?