You may know the title of this post, as I do, as one of the all time great movie lines spoken by the Kurgan (Clancy Brown) in the 1986 cult classic, The Highlander. These days it could also serve as the mantra for Hillary Clinton's run for President. (UPDATE: Ok, I've now been informed by at least 20 people that the line is originally from Neil Young's 1979 hit "Hey Hey, My My.")

As noted at Politics Nation this morning, the new NBC/WSJ shows Hillary's favorable ratings tanking, going from a net of plus 2 (45 very/somewhat positive vs. 43% very/somewhat negative) two weeks ago to a net -11 points this week (37-48). As Jackie Calmes points out in her write up of the results, even a plurality of women hold a negative view of Clinton according to the new survey.

(It's interesting to note, however, that Bill's ratings have actually improved slightly over the same period. Two weeks ago he was at a minus 3 net - 42% very/somewhat positive vs. 45% very/somewhat negative- versus a minus 1 in the most recent poll, 42-43.)

Nevertheless, I don't think the Clintons care much about these kinds of ratings, nor do they necessarily care about the whining and moaning from Democrats who chastise them for their tactics or counsel them to get out. For them, this is the way its done.

As Bill said yesterday in West Virginia, "If a politician doesn't wanna get beat up, he shouldn't run for office. If a football player doesn't want to get tackled or want the risk of an a occasional clip he shouldn't put the pads on."

It's telling that Clinton mentioned the risk of "an occasional clip." For the football illiterate, a "clip" is an illegal play where one player hits another player from behind and below the waist. Because striking a player that way could potentially result in a serious injury, "clipping" carries the maximum penalty of 15 yards. The suggestion that players from the same team would set out to clip each other on purpose in what amounts to an intrasquad scrimmage (albeit an extremely high stakes one) is exactly the kind of thing that has some Democrats feeling anywhere between queasy and repulsed by some of the tactics they've seen from the Clinton campaign.

Again, I don't know that Hillary is all that concerned about the niceties and nuances here. She's in the fight of her life, she's hanging on by a thread, and she's got the political instincts of a pit bull. In other words, she's destined to burn out. Fading away was never an option.

UPDATE: Mark Halperin makes a good point about the double standard at play here. Why has the Obama campaign gone after Clinton so hard lately? Halperin's reason number 9: "Because they can: the media continues to highlight the Clinton campaign's negative tactics in a disapproving way, but only rarely points out the intensified negative tone and rhetoric Obama's campaign has been using - even though it conflicts with the candidate's professed desire for a new kind of politics."

In fairness to Clinton, Halperin is right: the Obama campaign has indeed gotten away with murder. They've been having it every which way from Sunday: attacking Clinton with impunity while claiming some sort of political high ground, and playing the put upon victim when attacked or criticized. It's a great strategy - if you can get away with it, and Obama seems to be pulling it off.