Why is Hillary Clinton so popular?

[IceSpear]

She was already preferred by half of the party in 2008. The other half now likes her for being a good SoS and a team player. She's a woman in a party that thinks it's long past due that a woman should be president. She's the wife of an extremely popular former president. She was widely approved of and praised for her tenure as SoS, even by Republicans before they got terrified of her running again and drummed up "Benghazi!!1111!!11!!1". Aside from her hawkish streak on foreign policy, her policy views fit the party as a whole. She's one of the most experienced candidates to run in decades. She also polls far better than everyone else, which makes people want her for electability reasons as well.

[IceSpear]

IMHO, plenty of other Democrats would have about as good a chance as Clinton in the 2016 GE, if they were to win the nomination.  But the others don't currently have her name recognition, so they're not going to show up as being all that strong in polls taken right now.  (And of course, she'll probably be the nominee, so this proposotion won't be tested.)

Name recognition is certainly a factor, but it's not the end all be all. Hillary still leads Republicans who have high name recognition. Conversely, when low name recognition Ds are tested against low name recognition Rs, the R still tends to have an advantage.

Also, Biden's name recognition is as high as Hillary's, and he tends to do markedly worse than Hillary in polls. Ex:

[IceSpear]

Because she's not officially running for office yet.  Once she starts acting in both word and deed as a candidate, people will start thinking of her as "Candidate Hillary" rather than "Secretary Hillary", and her popularity will correspondingly go down (particularly any crossover appeal she has now).

That's already happened. Her favorability ratings haven't been sky high for quite a while now.

[IceSpear]

Because she's not officially running for office yet.  Once she starts acting in both word and deed as a candidate, people will start thinking of her as "Candidate Hillary" rather than "Secretary Hillary", and her popularity will correspondingly go down (particularly any crossover appeal she has now).

That's already happened. Her favorability ratings haven't been sky high for quite a while now.

Umm, how do you know? She is still the heavy favourite in the Primaries. But of course I don't consider her favorability ratting dropping from 70 to 69% bad news LOL.

I'm talking about her favorability among the entire electorate.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=203854.0
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating

But yes, her favorability among Democrats is still >90%, which is why she's a lock in the primary.

[IceSpear]

People seem to of forgotten the 2008 Primaries, she lost them for several reasons...
-she saw the Democratic nomination as her right, and expected major figures (Kennedy, Richardson) to endorse her straight away
-Her weakness in Iowa
-Stupid comments about Obama (comparing him to Kennedy in 68 and saying 'we all knew what happened to him'')
-Thinking Experience=Success in politics
-Underestimating the desire for someone who isn't a Bush or a Clinton
-Being a major hawk

If she can get past these issues in 2016 then she'll be fine-I expect that Warren or Cuomo could take hit out of her. People almost see Obama's 2008 campaign as divine intervention when in fact it was Clinton's to lose

2008 is a lazy, surface level comparison that doesn't actually look at the facts. I highly suggest you read these articles:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/01/remember-when-nobody-gave-obama-a-chance-to-beat-clinton-never-happened/

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-iowa-2016/

If you don't feel like reading the articles, then Steve Kornacki can explain the difference for you:

http://youtu.be/7rKtkZT5EFI

Also, Cuomo? LMFAO! The guy can't break 1% in the polls, and barely cracked 60% in the New York primary against some random law professor. Hillary would thrash him both in NY and nationwide. He knows that, and that's why he's sitting out if she runs.

[IceSpear]

Because she's not officially running for office yet.  Once she starts acting in both word and deed as a candidate, people will start thinking of her as "Candidate Hillary" rather than "Secretary Hillary", and her popularity will correspondingly go down (particularly any crossover appeal she has now).

That's already happened. Her favorability ratings haven't been sky high for quite a while now.

It'll happen some more.

I doubt it. The low hanging fruit (Republicans and conservative Indies who approved of her a non-partisan SoS) has already been picked. In order for her to fall significantly more they'd need to lower her ~90% favorability among Democrats.

[IceSpear]

People seem to of forgotten the 2008 Primaries, she lost them for several reasons...
-she saw the Democratic nomination as her right, and expected major figures (Kennedy, Richardson) to endorse her straight away
-Her weakness in Iowa
-Stupid comments about Obama (comparing him to Kennedy in 68 and saying 'we all knew what happened to him'')
-Thinking Experience=Success in politics
-Underestimating the desire for someone who isn't a Bush or a Clinton
-Being a major hawk

If she can get past these issues in 2016 then she'll be fine-I expect that Warren or Cuomo could take hit out of her. People almost see Obama's 2008 campaign as divine intervention when in fact it was Clinton's to lose

2008 is a lazy, surface level comparison that doesn't actually look at the facts. I highly suggest you read these articles:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/07/01/remember-when-nobody-gave-obama-a-chance-to-beat-clinton-never-happened/

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-iowa-2016/

After reading Game Changer, the book that is virtually just covering the democratic primaries it's clear that there were a lot of issues with her 2008 candidacy, the arrogance of her entire campaign and her expectation that she'd get endorsed by the big guns-let alone her comments comparing Obama to Bobby Kennedy which is low remark considering she held RFK's seat.

I'd vote democrat at nearly every presidental election but I'd have doubts about Hiliary. She's a neocon Hawk who thinks she owns the democratic party; we can't have a coronation in 2016. Hilary needs to face an actual challenge. In 2007 apart from Edwards Hiliary didn't face much of a challenge yet she blew it;as this article puts it ''She had everything going for her. The most famous name in politics. A solid lead in the polls. A war chest of at least $133 million.'' Look at the comments made by Penn in the 2008 campaign saying that 'Obama isn't American enough, that he's unelectable''

I just think there's a great amount of arrogance in some democrats who think that she should just be able to walk into the 2016 primaries and pick up the nomination on the basis of experience-as I said before what did she do as SOS apart from pushing for attacks on Syria and Libya that appear to have backfired in both cases

Hillary's 2008 campaign had issues, there's no doubt about it, but I don't really see how that's relevant. My point was that her position in 2006/2007 is in no way comparable to her position now. She trailed in Iowa most of the time in the 2008 cycle, now she leads there by 40-50 points. Her lead nationally was 20 points at the highest (but usually lower), compared to her 50 point leads now. In 2008 she was the frontrunner but not unstoppable. In 2016, she's completely dominant and inevitable. That's why nobody of any serious stature is going to challenge her. That's why the rank and file, the establishment, and the elected officials are all lining up behind her. Nobody's forcing Hillary down anyone's throat. If the voters didn't want Hillary she wouldn't be polling at 60%+ and have 90%+ favorability among Democrats.