Poll: Hillary Easily Beats Giuliani in the General Election

I might have to retract an earlier prediction. I said that Hillary would not win the nomination because of the last nomination process when Kerry got the nomination rather than the front-runner Howard Dean. ABC reported tonight that every candidate that was at least 50% in the polls the year before the election (since 1980) won the nomination of their party. The only exception was in 1980, when Jimmy Carter beat Ted Kennedy. Therefore, Hillary is sitting pretty (yuk):

Bill Clinton's legacy does at least as much for his wife's presidential ambitions as Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 performance bolsters his — two subjects sure to dominate if these current front-runners go on to win their party's presidential nominations.

Hillary Clinton currently has the edge in a head-to-head test, with 51 percent support to Giuliani's 43 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll (compared with 49-47 percent early this year). But behind those bare numbers are a slew of competing images and interests with many months to play out.