I’ve repeatedly pointed out that Hillary Clinton’s high unfavorables make her a weak general election candidate. But I didn’t know that her husband started his general election campaign with similarly awful numbers:

When Karl Rove said yesterday that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unfavorable rating was in the “high 40s,” maybe he hadn’t seen the most recent CBS News poll. And when he said no one had been elected with negatives as high as hers, he had apparently forgotten some recent history.

…Mr. Rove’s point was this: “There’s nobody who has ever won the presidency who started out in that kind of position.”

In fact, Mrs. Clinton’s husband was in that very position and did win. And Mrs. Clinton’s numbers are better than his were at this point in his first campaign for the White House.

In April 1992, only 26 percent of voters had a favorable view of Bill Clinton, while 40 percent viewed him unfavorably, according to a Times/CBS poll. By June 1992, his favorables had plunged further, so that only 16 percent had a favorable opinion, with 40 percent still unfavorable.

After Mr. Clinton won the nomination and after his convention, his favorable rating began to rise. By October 1992, his ratings had become about even, with 34 percent favorable and 35 percent unfavorable.

This might seem like a counterexample to my argument, but I don’t think it is.

First, Bill Clinton is by almost every account the most talented politician of his generation. Hillary is improving, but nowhere near as good. (And even Bill could never really overcome his high unfavorables; he went from being a uniquely polarizing candidate to a uniquely polarizing president.)

Also, Bill was virtually unknown in mid-1992. As a result, a substantial number of voters were willing to revise their initial impressions as they learned more about him. By contrast, millions of people have had unfavorable views of Hillary for fifteen years. Those kinds of opinions are much, much harder to dislodge.

Postscript: Mark Penn has claimed that Hillary’s unfavorables will decline in the general election. Bill’s apparently did, but barely (40% -> 35%). On the other hand, his favorables went up substantially (16% -> 34%) as Democrats and presumably some Democrat-leaning independents rallied to the cause.