The strengths and potentially fatal weaknesses of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid were on full display yesterday as she rolled out her campaign’s biggest star: her husband Bill.

After rarely appearing with him since she announced her candidacy in January, Mrs Clinton launched the next phase of her White House bid: a new, high-profile role for the former President, who, until now, has been a largely behind-the-scenes adviser.

Under a hot sun in Concord, New Hampshire, Mr Clinton said that his wife would make a great president. Mrs Clinton interlaced her address with loving references to “Bill”. Then to the strains of Tina Turner’s Simply the Best, they worked the crowd for over an hour.

The joint appearances in the crucial early primary state of New Hampshire – with more to follow in Iowa today – were a graphic reminder that between them the Clintons bring to the former First Lady’s campaign huge experience and a ruthless political machine. They also carry enormous political baggage at a time when America appears exhausted by an era of vicious partisanship that began during their White House years.

The appearance of Mr Clinton also served to raise the most burning question about his wife’s campaign, and perhaps the greatest riddle of a wide-open presidential race full of uncertainty: America would probably elect him President next year if the Constitution allowed it, but is the country at large really ready to elect his wife?

As things stand today, Mrs Clinton is the favourite to win the Democratic nomination. Among Democrats nationally, she holds a 17-point lead over her leading rival, Barack Obama, although things are much closer in Iowa and New Hampshire.

If she wins the nomination Mrs Clinton will enter a general election disliked by more voters than any other current candidate. Polls show that roughly half of American voters have an unfavourable view of her – extraordinarily high “negatives” for a White House hopeful. America has never really warmed to Mrs Clinton.

She is also a woman. It is not clear if enough voters are ready for their first female president. Stoking Democratic fears about her electability is the fact that in head-to-head match-ups against the leading Republican candidate, Rudy Giuliani, Mrs Clinton is either tied or only just beats him. Mr Obama fares better and John Edwards, trailing Mrs Clinton by 26 points in Democratic polls, beats all the leading Republicans easily.

Mr Edwards’s head-to-head success – he is a white Southerner – points to other, often unspoken, concerns among Democrats. With the Republican Party in disarray, Democrats enter the 2008 White House in the most favourable political environment for a generation. Yet the party’s two leading candidates – Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama – are a woman and an African American. All 43 US Presidents have until now been white men.

Mrs Clinton – together with her husband – is detested by conservatives. There are even “I hate Hillary” jockstraps. There is a growing belief among many that a Clinton candidacy could be the best thing to happen to the Republican Party.

“She unifies the party. She motivates part of the base,” said Grover Norquist, a conservative activist. Combine this with the manifold scandals of her husband’s presidency and, in Mrs Clinton, Democrats have a candidate who could turn an almost unlosable election into a Republican victory.

Yet she also has enormous strengths that could well carry her to the White House. Her husband brings baggage – but also the shrewdest political brain in the business.

She is intensely hardworking and disciplined. She cites the eight years of “peace and prosperity” of her husband’s presidency. She is a veteran of the Clinton wars of the 1990s and hardened against the politics of personal destruction. She has perhaps the best political machine in America. In addition to her husband she has Mark Penn, the Democrats’ version of Karl Rove, the architect of President Bush’s election victories.

Since she became New York’s junior senator in 2001, she has remodelled herself as a hawkish centrist. She won reelection to the chamber last year with a massive majority. She even captured 61 per cent of the vote in the state’s rural conservative heartland.

In debates she has appeared vastly more experienced and knowledgeable – particularly on foreign policy – making her Democratic rivals look insubstantial. She has also appeared relaxed and funny, in formal settings and on the stump. Perhaps most crucially, she does not have to convince all of America to vote for her. She needs to win only one more mid-sized state than John Kerry in 2004 to take the White House.

Fierce opposition

— In a Gallup poll conducted in August 49 per cent of Americans said they looked on Hillary Clinton unfavourably while 47 per cent of those surveyed said they were in favour of her.

— At the last count, there were 16 anti-Clinton books listed as recommended reading on the website nohillaryclinton.com.

— At least six anti-Clinton websites have been set up in the last year to discredit the presidential hopeful.

— One website - StopHerNow.com - has so far run five episodes of a cartoon called the Hillary Show, which portrays her as a mean and unforgiving talk show host.

— Veteran Republican campaigner David Bossie is raising money, asking for footage and hunting down stories about Clinton for a film that aims to dig up dirt on the senator.

Sources: usaelectionpolls.com , StopHerNow.com , nohillaryclinton.com , hillcap.org , YouTube.com , news agencies

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