(I know, I know, stop with the 2008 already, before it’s too late and we have to cover it.)

Larry Sabato raises some today in a mass e-mail:

Many Democrats believe that it will be impossible to stop her from securing the party nomination in 2008. The Crystal Ball disagrees for one very important reason: Senator Clinton is likely to win the general election only if 2008 turns out to be a strong Democratic year when any major Democrat would have prevailed. Despite her attempts to moderate, Senator Clinton is firmly fixed in the public’s mind as a Northeastern liberal from a deep blue state–rather reminiscent of another recent nominee from Massachusetts. Those Arkansas days are far behind her, and few in the Razorback State believe she could carry the only Southern state where it is plausible she might have a chance.
Why is Clinton’s ideology seen as so rigidly left, given the fact that National Journal’s voting studies show her to be more moderately liberal than commonly thought? Bluntly put, Senator Clinton will never escape the stifling confines of her husband’s controversial administration. A feminist in the 1992 campaign who wasn’t going to stay home and “bake cookies,” and who was sold as a co-president, she will always be associated with the “Hillary Care” health plan that failed disastrously, the scandals that plagued the Clinton administration from start to finish (Whitewater, Vince Foster’s suicide, the missing billing records, the last-minute pardons), and the searing Monica Lewinsky impeachment debacle that raised uncomfortable questions about the Clintons’ marital arrangement.
Assuming the marriage is now stable, the unavoidable fact is that Bill Clinton would be moving back into the White House with a President Hillary Clinton. Surveys have consistently shown that both Clintons still bear many scars from their time at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and what has been forgotten about their many controversies will be re-investigated and refreshed during the course of a long 2008 campaign. Only a decisive rejection of the Bush regime and GOP actions in Congress could convince the electorate to overlook its raw feelings about the Clintons and to revisit that chapter of American history–one that was closed with considerable, widespread relief in early 2001.