She’s a celebrity with an impressive résumé, major-league supporters and five consecutive years of being the Gallup Poll’s “most admired woman.”

Yet as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton plunges into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, she faces resistance from many fellow Democrats who don’t like her, don’t like her positions on issues or don’t think she can win.

“We’ve got to find somebody else,” says David Newman, a retired teacher from York, Me., tells USA Today. “I think she’s great. If she had a chance of winning, I’d vote for her. She’s dragging a ball and chain behind her. There are too many people who have an aversion to her.”

Clinton is, without question, a complicated package. Her constituents and Senate colleagues generally view her as smart and hard-working. On the flip side, there’s her personality (perceived in some quarters as chilly), her vote on the Iraq war (she supported it) and her gender (and the doubts of whether America is ready for a female president).

Then there’s that husband of hers. We’ll get to that later.

Clinton began her long-expected campaign Saturday with an announcement on her website that “I’m in, and I’m in to win.”

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken January 5-7 suggests some of the potential obstacles in her path. In the poll, 14 percent of Democrats say they would not support Clinton as their party nominee; 52 percent said they might consider her.

When the two groups were asked about “major reasons” they might not or would not support her, 29 percent cited a belief that she can’t win the presidency; 26 percent pointed to disagreement with her on issues.

One-third of Democrats said they would definitely support Clinton. That put her ahead of 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who sparked excitement last week when he officially moved into the race. But her lead is about 10 points below then-vice president Al Gore’s showing in polls a year before the 2000 primaries.

Mark Penn, Clinton’s pollster, says Clinton has strengthened her standing among Democrats since the November elections and now is the first or second choice of 60 percent of them.

“She is moving up,” he saud.

State polls and anecdotal evidence show mixed prospects for Clinton. In Hollywood, where Democratic candidates go to raise money, some people are committed to her, but others are abuzz over Obama and Edwards.

Clinton is seen as very competent and strong. At the same time, there is a high level of concern about her 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq war and how viable she might be in a general election.

Two recent polls of Iowa, the first caucus state, put Edwards first and Clinton fourth; a third has Clinton in first. In New Hampshire, the first primary state, a Zogby poll last week as Obama moved into the race had him at 23 percent, followed by Clinton and Edwards tied at 19 percent.

Clinton hasn’t been to Iowa in more than two years, New Hampshire in more than a decade. She plans to visit Iowa this weekend and New Hampshire shortly after. Where she has been working hard, in New York, she swept to re-election with 67 percent of the vote last fall.

Clinton, 59, had never lived in New York when she moved there to run for a Senate seat in 2000. Her supporters often invoke her success there as evidence that she can convince voters anywhere. Yet some New Hampshire voters wonder if Clinton can replicate her New York success in more conservative states.

“She won all those people over. I don’t know how she did it. There are people who just hate her,” says Peg MacDonald of Portsmouth, a retired public television researcher who calls Clinton “too polarizing” to win.

Valery Mitchell, an activist from Concord, says she has found few Democrats interested in supporting Clinton.

“She is not the same person as Bill Clinton,” she said. “Bill Clinton endears himself to the electorate. It’s regrettable she can’t do the same.”

Still, what happens when the contest moves beyond small states and living-room politicking? Democrats have had two nominees in a row — Al Gore and John Kerry — who did well in the personal phase but had trouble projecting appeal on a national scale.

Coaching can fix that, analysts say, but only if a candidate has the right coaches. Kerry and Gore both picked advisers who took a very dispassionate view of the electorate. They thought campaigns were about convincing people that you have the best policies. If Clinton gets people like that behind her, there’s no way that she could make people feel comfortable.

The video announcement on her official site suggests Hillary Clinton and her advisers understand the challenge ahead. Clinton sits on a comfy couch, her arm slung over a throw pillow, pictures of her family behind her.

“Let’s talk. Let’s chat,” she says, leaning forward. “While I can’t visit everyone’s living room, I can try.”

Clinton has been a policy-oriented senator, which Democrats say is a large part of her success. In majority Republican Cayuga County, in Upstate New York, Clinton won 60 percent of the vote in November, up from 47 percent in 2000. Local Democrats credit frequent visits to discuss agriculture, energy and economic development.

But Janet Polasky, a history professor at the University of New Hampshire, is in the Clinton-can’t-win camp because of policy, rather than personality reasons.

“I actually like Hillary Clinton very much, but I don’t think she’s electable,” she said. “I’m not sure at this point that anyone who supported the war is electable.”

Polasky is leaning toward Obama. He was a state senator speaking against an invasion at the time of the Senate vote in fall 2002.

Sens. Kerry of Massachusetts, Joseph Biden of Delaware and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut voted for the war, as did Edwards, then a senator from North Carolina. All four and Clinton say they would have voted differently if they had known Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Clinton showcased a tougher stance on the Iraq conflict last week after a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. She introduced a bill to cap the number of U.S. troops at the level before the recent boost, and said she wants to get U.S. troops out of Baghdad and Iraq.

However, as in the past, she would not say when that should happen. That’s problematic for anti-war Democrats, as is her initial vote.

Then there’s the matter of the would-be First Man. How to discuss Iraq is a conundrum Clinton shares with other Democrats seeking the presidency. Two other facets of her bid are unique, and cut for and against her: her gender and her husband.

Bill Clinton’s political and strategic skills make him an asset. On the other hand, despite Hillary Clinton’s own considerable political skills, she’s often compared to him and found wanting. On top of that, there’s the Monica Lewinsky affair that threw their marriage into shambles and led to his impeachment.

Already, The New York Times and other publications have run articles about the state of the Clintons’ marriage. Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway offered a possible preview of 2008 attack rhetoric on MSNBC in April 2005:

“The fact is that Hillary Clinton could not stand up to a cheating husband, so how in the world would she stand up to North Korea and some of our other enemies around the globe?”

In polls of Iowa and New Hampshire last month by Research 2000, Clinton lost to former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain, two leading GOP presidential prospects. Both states are important in a general election.

Clinton’s performance will improve once she starts visiting the two states, some pollsters believe. Nationally, she has polled well in this early stage.

In a memo posted Sunday on Clinton’s website, Hillary was the only Democrat who defeated both McCain and Giuliani in a new Washington Post poll. Only Clinton and Obama were tested. In a new Newsweek poll, only Edwards beat the GOP pair.

Clinton’s “baggage” is part of the reason people say she can’t win. But is the notion that Clinton can’t win a mask for people who don’t want to confront the gender question?

About 85-90 percent of Americans tell pollsters they would vote for a woman for president. But that might not tell the whole story. Matthew Streb, a political scientist at Northern Illinois University, says new research suggests the real level of resistance is 25-30 percent and applies equally across all demographic groups. On the other hand, some have suggested in might energize female voters.

Clinton’s good-news, bad-news situation was reflected in a poll of New Hampshire Democrats last fall by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. She led the field for the nomination, yet in the same poll was clustered with losing nominees Kerry and Gore as the prospect Democrats least liked.

Even as they concede that her money, fame and organization may make her their nominee, poll director Andrew Smith says, many activists have a sense of doom about her electability.

“They’re looking for the anti-Hillary candidate,” he said.