I don’t think so. Democrats like Clinton just fine. Republicans would be smearing Jesus Christ had the Democrats nominated him. They’ve been smearing Hillary for 25 years now and her negatives may be high just for that reason, had anyone else been nominated, the Republican lies would soon have that nominee with negatives as high as hers.
There are a body of people who would oppose any Democrat, an equal number of those who would oppose any Republican. It just so happens that in the states that matter, Democrats have the inside track.
MSNBC is reporting that Al Gore is set to campaign for Clinton to try to win more of the millennial vote.
(The reporting about Gore starts about 50 seconds into the video.)
I sometimes wonder just how much effect any of the lies and smears really truly have. Looking at people I know, and people I see online, I get the impression that the lies and smears against a given candidate are repeated mostly by people who would be against that candidate anyway, and dismissed by that candidate’s supporters.
Although I do wonder about the number of millennials who seem to think Hillary is some kind of crook. It may be that they believe that because they’ve been hearing the smears their whole lives and have just assumed that there must be something to them.
So she didn’t admit that having a private email account was a mistake, and the IG didn’t say that it wasn’t authorized, and the FBi didn’t say that she didn’t turn over all work related emails?
Sure, there are smears against Clinton. There’s also a lot of true things about Clinton, like the fact that she starts lying right away whether she’s innocent or guilty.
I disagree with this. If it was just about Republican smears, Obama would have had just as difficult a contest against McCain and Romney as Clinton is having now. I can only think of a few other explanations for why Clinton is not doing as well as Obama did in his elections. I’ll list them, but I don’t think any of them are actually true.
Trump is a better candidate than McCain and Romney.
The country has become more conservative since 2012.
Sexism is a more widespread problem than racism. There are more people who would refuse to vote for a white woman than would refuse to vote for a black man.
I think that Clinton is just not as good at campaigning as Obama is. It stands to reason that if one person (Obama) is a better campaigner, there might be someone else (Biden) who might also possibly be a better campaigner.
People have a tendency to suddenly be immune to data where Clinton is concerned. No, you cannot just do to any candidate what was supposedly done to Clinton. If it was that easy, Republicans would just do it to everyone. As you point out, Obama was mostly immune to it. Although even in Obama’s case Democrats seem unwilling to accept that his low approval rating throughout most of his Presidency was his own doing.
I think if we took away birtherism and other conspiracy mongering (and general racism), Obama would have had a positive approval rating for his entire term. That doesn’t mean he didn’t also make some mistakes – just that some significant amount of the anti-Obama feelings were (and still are) due to racism or other things entirely beyond his control.
I think part of Hillary’s problem in the polls is that the GOP realized after the 2008 race that she was pretty likely to be the nominee in 2016 (or maybe they decided she’d be the candidate they’d have the most trouble beating). The time they weren’t spending trying to derail Obama’s presidency, they spent trying to bring down Clinton.
Do you think the whole Benghazi thing would have gotten so much GOP attention if it had happened during Kerry’s tenure as SOS? I don’t.
Interesting list. Trump is definitely a more charismatic candidate than McCain and Romney. He comes off as the perfect authoritarian figure to that segment of the population who crave an authoritarian. There isn’t much difference between a Trump rally and an Nazi rally.
No, the country is not more conservative than 2012. It used to be that Republicans could gin up the vote by putting an anti gay marriage proposal on the ballot, that wouldn’t work now (at least in their favor). But what has happened is that bigots now feel to shout out loud what they could only hint at in the past. Trump has given them a permission slip to proclaim their hatred proudly.
Clinton is definitely not as good a campaigner as Obama. But we’ve seen great charismatic black speakers before (MLK, Jesse Jackson). We have never seen a great charismatic woman before. Clinton is being graded on a scale that hasn’t existed before. People want her to be strong but not masculine. She’s supposed to be relatable but not seen as superior. Most of the time she really is the smartest person in the room, but the voters don’t like that idea. There is no possible way for her to please some of the voters.
This post deserves highlighting (and I agree that the Dems should make sure every Ohioan is aware of Trump’s record on this).
Yes–there really is racism and there really is sexism, and they do affect both polls and votes.
I would go so far as to say that there is NO female (or black) candidate for the US Presidency who would not be greeted with dismay by a substantial proportion of the electorate–no matter how stellar and clean a record that candidate may possess.
It’s just a numbers game. Obama did lose the votes of bigots and gain the votes of blacks who might not have come out to vote, otherwise. Clinton will lost the votes of misogynists and gain the votes of some who might otherwise not have come out (in her case, perhaps, that group will be more about stopping her opponent than about making history by electing a female, but…votes are votes).
I love that the alt-right wear their* Basket of Deplorables *t-shirts proudly and completely without irony. It’s like wearing your underwear on the outside so you can show people the awesomeness of your skid marks. It was a Trump rally; I’m pretty sure we can assume they were his supporters acting deplorably. Again.
Just to be clear, the Secret Service didn’t force her to leave. She decided to leave which caused Trump supporters in the audience to harass her and then the Secret Service gave her an escort on the way out.
When I first read the headline, it sounded like the Secret Service was making her leave.
