It's far too early for Democrats to hit the panic button, but voters' attitudes toward their would-be First! Woman! President! are decidedly cool -- and have headed in the wrong direction ever since she announced (and
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As you can see, her overall favorability has dropped nine net points since last summer, clocking in at a weak 39 percent. Less than half of respondents call her competent or decisive, while just 41 percent and 40 percent of Americans says she's "likeable" and "compassionate," respectively. The latter number has to be especially troubling to Team Hillary, given the enormous advantage Barack Obama held over Mitt Romney on that measure. The notion of electing a female president is surely inspirational to many people, but that inspiration isn't translating over to Hillary Clinton herself. And just last week, in her first national interview of her three-month-old campaign, Mrs. Clinton asserted that Americans "should and do" trust her. Nope. Her honesty score slides to an abysmal 31 percent in this survey. Perhaps voters aren't keen on being
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One imagines that the Clinton campaign is distressed, but not apoplectic over this data; one one hand, it's ugly. On the other, under-enthused Democrats will more or less rally around her once she's the nominee, at which point she and her allies will unleash a $1 billion negative blitzkrieg against the Republican ticket. Then again, the only presidential candidate who polled worse than Clinton in the entire survey was…longtime Hillary Clinton donor and cheerleader, Donald Trump, whose favorability is a cool 30 points underwater (28/58). A mere nine percent of respondents said they didn't know enough about Mrs. Clinton to render a verdict on her. Redefining one's image after spending decades fully ensconced in the political aristocracy is a real challenge. That "not sure yet" stat was much higher for a number of top GOP contenders, including Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz -- each of whom attracted 43 percent in that category. Less than a quarter (23 percent) said the same about Jeb Bush, and just 12 percent for Trump. Speaking of Jeb and the Donald,
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