If Hillary had voted against IWR, would this still be a race?

[BeyondGeography]

[AX10]

1. Yes, because Obama and company..

would be digging up other issues and other right wing talking points against her.
The left wing's hatred of her is equal to that of the right wing.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. I am willing to say that she would be less disliked by many on the left

if Hillary had voted against the IWR. She may well not have been a netroots favorite this year even so, but it would have helped her put this race away early before Obama got any real traction.

[Kahuna]

9. I agree. nt

[BeyondGeography]

11. I would have had a hard time seeing the point of Obama's candidacy if she had voted no

I still would have supported him, but a key differentiating point, if not the key, wouldn't be there. She would also be exponentially more sympathetic to people who will never forgive a pro-IWR vote, like me.

[ozone_man]

2. No, meaning that she would have already won.

One big thing Obama has in his favor, but he should go for the win by linking the staggering cost of Iraq war with the cost of health care and social security. Choose which programs you want, but you can't have war and social programs, war costs too much.

Which leader do you want? One who makes the right choice from day one, or one who does the popular thing at the time?

[DutchLiberal]

3. Yes, because people are stupid.

[Demeter]

4. If She'd Had the Good Sense to Vote Against War, I'd Support Her

As it is, we've had enough belligerent idiots in public office for a century already. We don't need another, even if she's female.

[BootinUp]

6. If Hillary had voted against the IWR

would she have been re-elected. Thats something for anti-war Dems to ponder in my estimation.

[MonkeyFunk]

7. Yes

because the haters would just glom onto another issue.

They don't hate Hillary because of her IWR vote - they use the IWR vote because they hate Hillary.

Kerry, Biden, Dodd and Edwards weren't this badly reviled over it. Only Clinton is.

[Barack_America]

8. Right now, yes.

After Super Tuesday? That might have been different.

The IWR war vote is Obama's counter to Hillary's "experience" line.

[TexasObserver]

10. Yes, because the objections to her go far beyond IWR

Her performance since getting to the senate has been a huge disappointment to all of us who thought Hillary would follow in the footsteps of Bobby Kennedy. Instead, she built her work around making herself over as a centrist who isn't ashamed to shill to the defense industry and the war party.

[Adelante]

12. Well, I started with the IWR vote long before I was even thinking of Obama

If she had voted NO, I would probably not have opposed her outright, but I was looking for a candidate who had not voted for the IWR. It's not the single issue for me by any means and I decided on Obama for other reasons, but it did put Clinton out of the running as far as my primary vote was concerned from day one.