Is a Clinton Candidacy a recipe for defeat?

I cannot escape the feeling that the Democrats are about to pull steaming defeat from the jaws of victory again. Consider for a moment the republican race has chrystalized down into a two horse race --- John McCain and Mitt Romney. Neither candidate interests the evangelical segment of the republican party, in fact both are generally disliked by the this groups, McCain for undercutting blessed Bush and Romney for daring to be Mormon. There is only one name that will mobilize those people to vote for either candidate --- Hillary Clinton.

Additionally both Republican front-runners do well with moderates, while Hillary Clinton only polls well with the long-time Dem faithful and has the highest negative rating in the race.

This seems a recipe for disaster. Obama on the otherhand is the darling of independents and the disenfranchised. If he beats Hillary, the democratcic base falls in line behind him to give him the Dems 30% and a large portion of the independent vote ---say 20%. Now figuring that the evangelicals (say 10%) stay home or run their own candidate, the Republicans are at best going to get 25-30% republican + 15% Indy. That seems to be the only winning strategy vs. the republicans.

I have spent the last 24 hours considering the possibilities for my own vote. I am a regular voting, anti-Iraq war moderate with a strong liberal lean. I cannot envision a scenario that has me voting for Hillary Clinton as I find her the most morally questionable of the 4 likely finalists based on the cheap shots she has taken at Obama and the fact that she has not shown any leadership in this campaign when there were tons of opportunities for her to do so in this election. She has invariably taken the safe route to protect her candidacy from potential pitfalls and has shown herself to be the standard Democratic candidate. As of today I am thinking I will vote republican if Hillary is the Democratic candidate.