Ray Malone's Commentary

If you were Hillary's campaign manager what strategies would you use to elect her president? The problem is Hillary has, according to most polls, 45 or 46 percent of the likely voters who say they will not vote for her.

That is the highest negatives of any presidential candidate in the history of polling. Almost half of the voters do not like her and do not want her to be president. What that means is in order to win, Hillary would have to get the votes of well over 90 percent of those remaining. That is next to imposslible.

Of course as her campaign manager you would do all you could to get as many of those remaining votes as possbile.

But this situation cries out for a second strategy. For Hillary to win in November of 2008 a way will have to be found to reduce the size of the vote for the Republican candidate.

IF YOU CAN'T INCREASE THE SIZE OF THE VOTE FOR YOUR CANDIDATE, DO WHAT IT TAKES TO REDUCE THE VOTE TOTALS OF YOUR OPPONENT.

Hillary's campaign has to go negative early in the general election and stay negative until election day. Remember the purpose of a negative campaign is to reduce the turn out for your opponent. Hillary will have to find a way to reduce the conservative base turn out.

It is a sure thing that Hilllary's campaign (read media) will spend a lot of time, trying to reduce the turn out for the Republican candidate.

She obviously would like to see a Republican candidate with a lot of baggage. One that either the social or economic conservatives could be persuaded not to support. Her campaign will be mostly.. convince Republicans to stay home and not COME TO THE POLLS.

The Clinton object will not be TO GET conservative votes.. The object is to cause conservatives not to vote for PRESIDENT.

As one looks at the options, the best opportunity for HIllary is to reduce the turn out of the social conservatives. What would that take?. How about a Republican candidate that has higher moral vulnerability than William the Clinton?

How about a Republican candidate with a huge zipper problem. Say married three times, who has history of cheating on his wives. A man who has trouble earning the respect of his own children. How about a pro abortion, pro gay, gun controlling Republican candidate? If that would not keep the Religious right and Reagan Democrats at home on election day, I don't know what would?

The situation I describe would be Hillary's campaign's dream come true.

I know if I were running Hillary's campaign I would do all I could to see to it that Rudy Guiliani became the Republican nominee. Keeping negatives about Rudy low until he has won the nomination would be the current most important task..

Of course in the primary season the media could ask Rudy a few questions and then let him "APPEAR" to handle them well. Then those that are for Rudy could claim that he has shown he can handle the media.

But once Rudy had the nomination, reporters could be induced to ask Rudy such questions as... ."Have you been unfaithful to your current wife? What can you say that will convince the voters that you will not repeat your history of being unfaithful?" If you run true to your past, how can you assure us you can not be blackmailed by America's enemies. If he says he loves his current wife and will be true to her, , then the follow up "Isn't that the same thing you told your former wife or did you tell her you intended to cheat on her?...

How about this one. "Mr. Guiliani, you have refused to talk about your relationship with your various wives and estranged children... Are you saying that a persons moral behaviour should have no bearing on his fitness to serve as President?"

A few weeks of such trashing at nearly every press conference... with assorted rumors that Rudy just may be cheating on his current wife or has had a few one hour stands could reduce the support for Rudy by at least 4 or 5 million votes.

The option for the Rudy campaign would be to not answer questions. Then the media could speculate about all sorts of terrible things until Rudy agreed to be put behind a very large media 8 ball.

That would be enough to elect Hillary President. I like Rudy and think he would make a good president. But I also think a vote for Rudy in the primaries is a vote for Hilllary in November of 2008.

Until the Republican nominee is selected, nearly all the negative press coverage and negative comments from Hillary will be directed at the Mormonism of Mitt Romney. People comment that the media does not understand the social conservatives. I say they do. They want Rudy to get the nomination and they will do what they can to make that happen.

Oh and what about the obvious situation with Husband Bill? Well you see it was just sex with Bill. And Bill and HIllary had problems but they worked them out. Bill has only been married ONCE. Rudy .. three times. And Bill has a great relationship with his daughter... Rudy has problems with his children.

Rudy refuses to even talk about his problems. What is he hiding?

IF YOU COULD NOT VOTE FOR BILL CLINTON'S MORALS, THEN. HOW COULD YOU VOTE FOR A MAN WITH RUDY'S MORALS?

You see the moral questions do not hurt Democrats at the polls... Democrats and more than half the moderates don't see anything wrong with a little hanky panky.

JUST A FEW MILLION OF THE REPUBLICANS BASE SEE IT AS A PROBLEM. MORAL questions really hurt Republicans. The media sees Republicans as fair game.. they are just waiting for the hunting season to start....

The media and the Clinton campaign will not do anything to hurt Rudy's chances before the nomination process is over. Then look for all HELL TO BREAK LOSE. Once the media starts its moral attack on RUDY, he will be TOAST and HILLARY couldl be President Elect.

Think about it.. Think as if you were Hillary's campagin manager.