I often hear on DU that Clinton's lead in the primaries is mainly due to her name recognition. Though I doubt that is as paramount as it is made out to be, Jonathan Singer at Mydd makes the case that "name recognition" might also be the reason Clinton performs below Obama and Edwards in general election matchups even though "unnamed Democrat" outperforms the GOP often by double digits in polling. Her underperforming numbers aren't because she is Hillary, but because she is the named Democrat most people know.
Nonetheless, it is interesting to see that, broadly, both Obama and Edwards run better in the head-to-head matchups than Clinton. This is actually borne out in other such polling as well.
While I think this is largely a factor of Clinton's near universal name recognition, which any Democratic nominee would have by the time voters decide the next President in November 2008 (and thus it is not necessarily the case that Clinton would be a weaker general election candidate than either Edwards or Obama), these numbers do seem to undercut the notion shared by many Democratic primary voters that Clinton is the most "electable" candidate in the race.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/6/12/13021/9377I would add that Singer's reasoning also undercuts the notion by many in the blogosphere that Clinton is the
least electable of the top 3.
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