For years now, I’ve written about the potential weaknesses of Hillary Clinton in a general election campaign due to her high unfavorable ratings. Ezra Klein disagreed (here and here), arguing that any candidate in national politics becomes polarizing over time. But as I argued, there’s a big difference between ending up as a polarizing figure (Obama, potentially) and starting out as one (Hillary).

If you don’t believe me, consider the numbers. Obama has been pounded for weeks now by both Hillary and John McCain and embroiled in the controversy over his pastor Jeremiah Wright. And yet his profile is still much stronger than Hillary’s. Her current rating of 37 percent of Americans having positive feelings toward her “is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.” The number of Americans with negative feelings in the same poll was 48 percent. Both numbers represent a significant dropoff from a March 7-10 poll showing 45 percent positive, 43 percent negative. In addition, Gallup recently found that Hillary “is rated as ‘honest and trustworthy’ by 44% of Americans, far fewer than say this about John McCain (67%) and Barack Obama (63%).”

By contrast, the same NBC/WSJ poll shows Obama’s personal ratings at 49 percent positive, 32 percent negative. While his negative numbers have edged up, NBC found that “he’s still much more competitive with independent voters when matched up against John McCain than Hillary Clinton” and that “the biggest shift in those negative numbers were among Republicans.” Similarly, CBS found that “Unfavorable views have risen among Republicans” and that “[i]ndependent voters – a group Obama has successfully courted in many primaries and would try to draw in the general election – still view him favorably, about the same as last month.”

In short, to the extent that candidates matter (an open question in political science), an objective observer would still probably take Obama over Clinton. Endi3ng up as polarizing just isn’t equivalent to starting out that way.

Update 3/30 8:52 PM: Via Tim Russert on Meet the Press, here are the positive/negative feelings cross-tabs from the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll — wow:

Here’s the favorable, unfavorable. Hillary Clinton. It is now 37 positive, negative 48. Just two weeks ago, Clinton was at 45, 43. She’s dropped 8 points with her positive rating in two weeks. And look at the breakdown by party. Republicans, 10 positive, 79 negative; independents, just 24 percent positive, 56 percent negative; Democrats split 66, 17.

Obama, his positive is 49, 32. Two weeks ago, it was 51, 28. A modest drop in two weeks during the whole Reverend Wright controversy. Here’s breakdown by party. His positive amongst Republicans is 19. Remember, Clinton’s was 10. Independents, it’s 49. Clinton’s was 24. Democrats, it’s 71. Clinton’s was 66.