Romney Tops Hillary in Negatives

It's been my opinion all along that Mitt Romney, despite early successes in straw polls where votes are bought more than earned, has not a chance to win either the nomination nor the general election. His flip-flops on various issues are troublesome to conservatives, and Mormonism is mysterious and strange to a lot of Americans who don't want mysterious and strange in the White House (we've already had Jimmy Carter). The latest Rasmussen poll has Romney's negatives now surpassing Hillary's (and that's not easy to do):

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has finally surpassed New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the polls. Unfortunately for Romney, it’s a poll measuring the number of people committing to vote against him.

The Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% of Likely Voters would definitely vote against Romney if he’s on the ballot in 2008. That’s a point higher than the 43% who would definitely vote against Clinton. Only one other possible candidate surpassed Clinton in this category all year (former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who is not considered a candidate at this time).

It’s worth noting that Clinton’s core opposition is a bit smaller than it was earlier in the year (see last month’s report). It’s also worth noting that 50% of men will definitely vote against her. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of women share that view.

The five other leading contenders for the White House have from 33% to 38% of voters committed to voting against them. Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson is at the low end of that list with core opposition of 33%. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards is at 38% (see trends for all candidates).

Will the rank-and-file of each party look at those high negatives and decide that candidate can't win with those numbers and dump them for someone else? The Dems won't abandon Hillary, but the GOP will quickly move away from Romney once the real voting gets going.