Captain's Quarters -

There's nothing more predictive than a hot, breaking poll less than 90 weeks before an election, so let's be sure we give this Rasmussen poll the attention it deserves. Okay, we'll give it more attention than it deserves, but we'll just say we're doing it for the practice.

Snark aside, Rasmussen's new head-to-head polling on general election matchups shows an interesting phenomenon ... a strong streak of opposition to Hillary Clinton. That shines through the results of a Giuliani-Clinton matchup that may incentivize Hillary's Democratic primary opponents (via Hot Air):

In a match-up between the early 2008 frontrunners, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) leads New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) 52% to 43%. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Giuliani’s lead growing in recent months. His current nine-point advantage is up from a six point lead in January and a four-point lead in December.

Giuliani has solidified his title as the most popular candidate of Election 2008—his favorability ratings have inched back up to 70% ...

Clinton is viewed favorably by 50% and unfavorably by 48%. The last four times that Rasmussen Reports has polled on a Giuliani-Clinton race, Clinton’s support has remained unchanged at 43%.

While both candidates draw reasonable levels of support from within their own party, Giuliani has an enormous 64% to 27% advantage over Clinton among unaffiliated voters.

Hillary's negatives have been known for quite some time. The Democrats believed that she would overcome them once she began to campaign nationally, but that hasn't happened. In fact, this week she showed herself as an insecure crank, or at least her campaign made her seem uptight and insecure.

Giuliani exposes her as an albatross for the Democrats. Despite having near-universal recognition, she can only muster 43% against Rudy. Her Democratic opponents do not fare much better in terms of their support against Giuliani, but more people seem willing to be undecided regarding them than they do with Hillary. Edwards and Obama score in the mid-40s, but they also pull Giuliani into the same range, especially Edwards.

Is that Giuliani? It seems more reflective of Hillary. She has a large bloc of voters who will vote against her regardless of her opponent. Edwards and Obama get more benefit of the doubt.

What does this mean for Hillary? It means that she'd lose the election, if they held it today. It serves more as an early-warning system for the Democrats; Hillary comes with some serious electability limitations, and if that doesn't start shifting in the next few months, she can kiss that nomination goodbye. Assuming, of course, that nothing changes for the next 20 months.

Addendum: I forgot to note that John McCain also beats Hillary by 5 points, just outside the margin of error. However, he doesn't break the 50% mark as Rudy does against Hillary. Hillary had tied McCain in Rasmussen's January poll, but she slid back to the trailing position in February.

A bit more interesting is the favorability quotients of the Republican candidates. Giuliani has the largest positive rating by far, with a +43. McCain still surprisingly comes in second with +16. The rest of the pack has a quotient of less than 10 points, including Mitt Romney with a +4 (but 34% undecided). Sam Brownback, Newt Gingrich, Chuck Hagel, Mike Huckabee, and Duncan Hunter all have negative quotients, but most of them have large undecideds as well -- except for Gingrich.