Setting the Bar Low with Non-Facts

The campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton has started re-writing history so as to make it seem that she never had a chance here.

On Sunday, she told George Stephanopoulos on THIS WEEK, "When I started here, I was in single digits. I mean, nobody expected me to be doing as well as I’m doing in Iowa."

I don’t think I know a single person who didn’t expect Clinton — an able politician, the most admired woman in America according to Gallup, and a partner in the strongest Democratic political machine since Mayor Daley’s — to do as well as she’s doing, which is to be in the thick of things.

But more factually, as for starting in single digits, her campaign cannot point to one poll in which she was in single digits.

They send as back-up THIS POLL taken more than a year ago in which she was polling at 10 percentage points.

But that was long before she "started here."

And while I may not have been a math major, I’m fairly certain "10" is not a single digit.

Today, the charming Terry McAuliffe, her Campaign Chairman, told Fox News, "I think if you look from when we started this, when we got into Iowa, we were in single digits, 20, 25 points behind John Edwards who had been here for 6 years campaigning."

Again, her campaign cannot point to one poll in which she was in single digits and 20-25 points behind Sen. John Edwards, D-NC.

As backup for that one, they point to an poll taken by Hardstad in October 2006 — long before she declared her candidacy — when Clinton was polling at 16%, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, was at 13%, and Edwards was at 36%.

Rick Klein has more on Clinton’s campaign damping down expectations HERE.

This is the kind of behavior that makes you wonder what they know that we don’t.

– jpt