Hillary Clinton won't have an easy ride to presidency
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at a student conference for the Clinton...
Will Hillary Clinton be elected America's next president? The polls suggest she will.
Recent polls compiled by Real Clear Politics show her winning 67 percent of the vote in Democratic primaries, with no other candidate above 11 percent. General election polling shows Clinton with an average lead over various possible Republican nominees of 51 to 39 percent.
But an election isnt over until it is over, and this one hasnt started. For one thing, no one is sure whether Clinton will actually run.
She turns 69 in 2016 (the same age as Ronald Reagan when he was first elected in 1980) and she may consider that her achievements in eight years as first lady and U.S. senator and four years as secretary of state are enough for one lifetime.
Her achievements in that last office may look less impressive than they did in the first Obama term when majorities expressed approval of the president's foreign policy. Clinton's proudly proclaimed reset with Russia suddenly looks less like a triumph than a misfire.
She's also had health scares: a blood clot behind her right knee in 1998 and another in her skull in December 2012.
The 2016 election will be only the fourth in the last 40 years in which the incumbent president wasnt running. In the previous three 1988, 2000, 2008 the candidate of the presidents party ran roughly in line with the incumbents job approval.
That produced a 53 percent to 46 percent victory for George H. W. Bush, a popular vote plurality for Al Gore and a 53-46 defeat for John McCain.
The odd thing about 2016 polling is that Hillary Clinton runs far above Barack Obama's current job approval -- currently 43 percent--while in the few polls pitting Vice President Joe Biden and others against Republicans, those Democrats run far behind.
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