DON'T DRAW THE WRONG CONCLUSION ABOUT THAT ZOGBY POLL

You know the poll I mean:

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton trails five top Republican presidential contenders in general election match-ups, a drop in support from this summer, according to a poll released on Monday.

Clinton's top Democratic rivals, Barack Obama and John Edwards, still lead Republicans in hypothetical match-ups ahead of the November 4, 2008, presidential election, the survey by Zogby Interactive showed....

(Numbers available here.)

The obvious -- and wrong -- conclusion to draw is that Hillary is the least electable of the three leading Democrats. The correct conclusion to draw is that it's absurdly easy to drive the supposedly inevitable Democratic nominee, whoever that may turn out to be, into a position where he or she is trailing the Republican -- yes, even this year. All it takes is a sustained (even briefly sustained) run of bad press for the Democrat. When something like this happens, it's inevitably amplified by fellow Democrats in their usual circular-firing-squad mode (and don't think that'll stop after the nominee is chosen, because it never does), while the GOP, the right-wing media, and the supposedly neutral but really Democrat-loathing mainstream media seize on the bad press (when they're not initiating it) and sustain it until the nominee is badly tainted.

It happened to Hillary Clinton over the past few weeks -- and if she's not the nominee, it will happen to whoever beats her.

And, meanwhile, no Democrat is doing an effective job of framing any Republican, or the party as a whole, and no negative story about any Republican candidate has legs -- even Giuliani's Kerik/Regan mess.

I'll be shocked if a Democrat wins this election -- any Democrat.