My gut instinct is, No. News Stories that do the most damage are ones which confirm what the public already suspects about a candidate. Romney's "47%" remark was damaging not because it was necessarily untrue, but because it reinforced the narrative that he was an out-of-touch plutocrat that really didn't care about half the country. In the modern Presidential campaign, Define Your Opposition is one of the leading requirements, and few people are so easily Defined as Hillary. The loss of friendly media (NYTimes, WaPo, even MSNBC) is a brutal kick, as it makes it impossible to dismiss current stories involving influence-peddling as Right Wing Conspiracy nonsense. Voters rarely enough return a party to the White House for a third time, and Hillary's current (and future - and there will be future) problems involving the nexus of power and money will make that hurdle significantly higher. It would take a major meltdown on the Republican campaign for her to push past defending herself, successfully define and attack the opposition, and then present herself as the better option.
I also don't think she wins the primary. Democrats are willing to back Hillary as The Only Candidate, but I don't think they are as willing to back her as One Of Multiple Possible Candidates. It's not in the Democrat Party's instinct to run the Tired Old Worker Whose Turn It Is - that's a Republican Party tendency. The Democrat Party likes New and Fresh - Republicans spend their time looking for the next Reagan, Democrats for the next Kennedy. So, I think, the scandals give cover to Democrats who wish to jump ship from the Inevitable Hillary Train. O'Malley is still down in the polls, about where President Obama was at this point in the 2008 cycle - but he offers Democrats something to jump to that offers some level of experience, but also avoids the baggage of a Hillary campaign. For liberals, who prefer to think of themselves as sort of enlightened rebels (conservatives prefer to think of themselves as a sort of silent moral majority), jumping off the Hillary train will be an uplifting, freeing experience.
Expect more stories like this and
polls like this.
So - post your predictions
Let's see who has political instinct here and who doesn't