Any other Democrats anxious about Hillary?

[Beet]

I'm a little worried about her as a candidate. The consensus seems to be that she's a strong candidate, but she has some pretty unique and major vulnerabilities.

For one, there's the whole "No dynasties" thing, which I think is a crock of sh__ (especially how the Bush presidency is used against her) but just keeps coming back. It's one reliable line that can always be used against her. I think she's going to have to address this somehow.

Secondly, her negatives are deep. The people who dislike her really dislike her. Her positives, on the other hand, are not so deep. Besides a few people such as IceSpear, myself, and maybe a couple others, not many people will passionately defend her, but there are a lot of lukewarm supporters. I think this is a negative dynamic, because the more people research her, the more general opinion will be driven by those with strong opinions. I don't think many of the people who hate her can be convinced to stop hating her, but she's going to have to gin up her positives and get a critical mass of more than just lukewarm supporters. Yech.

[Beet]

Yeah, Hillary's ardent supporters tend not to be an "internet forum crowd" like Obama's were/are. But internet forum support only gets you so far, as Ron Paul can attest.

I certainly hope so, but internet comments have been fore-warnings of political trends before. Anyone reading the Marketwatch.com comments in late 2008 could have predicted something akin to the Tea Party. Christine Quinn also used to get universally panned on the NY Daily News website, even when she was leading in the polls.

But you're right, Paulism is a counterexample. I remember in 2010 or so when I was watching Sal Khan's videos on fractional reserve banking, he did a video on the gold standard and explained why he thought it would be a bad idea. The video enraged internet libertarians so much that he had to do a follow-up video explaining his ideas more closely. It took continuous efforts by people like Paul Krugman, as well the effects of austerity in Europe, to get people to gradually come around. So Internet trends can certainly be countered, but it's going to be up to Hillary and her team to do it.