# The Great Un-Fork Hillary Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 12, 2015, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458 "2015-04-12T00:17:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 41
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/801 "2015-07-26T03:35:27Z")
**Chronos** - Again: she is _not_ being investigated. The process by which the state department handles the emails she has handed over is being investigated. The possibility that some information was sent to the account that the Intelligence IG believes should have been categorized as classified and was not is being investigated … again, as a routine matter. These are very significant differences. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/802 "2015-07-26T03:59:13Z")
> [@](#): > > This is not a difficult concept. Clinton used a private email account to shield herself from transparency. Perry vetoed a bill funding an agency that had a criminal head who wouldn’t resign. …to shield himself from transparency. Seriously, the agency that he defunded was the public watchdog that was tasked with making sure the government wasn’t misbehaving. The drunk in charge of the agency had nothing to do with his reasons for his actions, except as a very weak pretext, and even if that had been his reason, it would have been a very bad reason, because the agency itself wasn’t drunk, just one person. EDIT: Right, **DSeid** , apologies for glossing over that distinction, which just makes the contrast even stronger. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/803 "2015-07-26T04:07:19Z")
And she resigned and the agency is now funded. He’s not being charged with defunding an agency. He’s being charged with coercing a criminal to resign her post. Someone who herself abused her power pretty blatantly in the process of trying to avoid arrest. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/804 "2015-07-27T20:27:11Z")
Aaaand the New York Times [apologizes](http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/a-clinton-story-fraught-with-inaccuracies-how-it-happened-and-what-next/?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0) for having fucked up so badly. Admittedly a pretty weak mea culpa: > [@](#): > > So it was, to put it mildly, a mess. As a result, I’ve been spending the last couple of days asking how this could happen and how something similar can be prevented in the future. … > > … “We got it wrong because our very good sources had it wrong,” Mr. Purdy told me. “That’s an explanation, not an excuse. We have an obligation to get facts right and we work very hard to do that.” … > > … There are at least two major journalistic problems here, in my view. Competitive pressure and the desire for a scoop led to too much speed and not enough caution … But the tone is still one of these sorts of fuck-ups are just unavoidable … and they are not. She (Margaret Sullivan, the Public Editor) let’s the staff off way too easy. This false story was run with, despite anonymous sources and no review of the document itself, and backed down without official corrections and without any transparency, because the staff is eager to find anything that can bring down the apparent frontrunner, Clinton. _Hence_ credulity became the word of the day. She is correct that > [@](#): > > readers come to The Times not for a scoop, though those can be great, but for fair, authoritative and accurate information. And when things do go wrong, readers deserve a thorough, immediate explanation from the top. None of that happened here. Hard to believe that they have really learned much when the defense remains (apparently) that they asked the same unnamed source several times and since (s)he kept saying the same thing they felt it had to be true! Or true enough anyway. We are competing with internet “news” now afterall! ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/805 "2015-07-28T03:24:15Z")
Cracking negative 24 [among independents.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/27/four-poll-numbers-to-make-hillary-clinton-sweat/?tid=pm_pop_b) ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/806 "2015-07-28T07:02:36Z")
Yes those are some really worrying numbers. The NBC/Marist poll backs up the Quinnipiac one: her favorability is 37-56 in Iowa and 37-57 in New Hampshire, around 7-8 points worse than her national numbers which are not that great either. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/807 "2015-07-28T11:46:50Z")
Can we put the confusion to rest at some point? **Independents ≠ swing voters**. A majority of the “independents” are GOP leaners who think that the GOP is not conservative enough to deserve their party ID. Some are Democratic leaners who feel the party is not liberal enough. That she is not doing much worse in that cohort is what is shocking. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/808 "2015-07-28T13:54:05Z")
A majority of independents are not GOP leaners: > **[Party Affiliation](https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx)** > > In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent? (Asked of independents: As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?) Independents split about evenly between Dem and Rep leaners. It’s true that they aren’t classic “swing voters”, but they aren’t just Republicans. If they were, Democrats would never win, becuase only 28% of voters are Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/809 "2015-07-28T16:41:19Z")
Chris Cilizza used the word “collapsing”. Is that the same as free fall, or is there a subtle difference I’m not aware of? > **[4 poll numbers that should unnerve Hillary Clinton](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/27/four-poll-numbers-to-make-hillary-clinton-sweat/)** > > People don't like her much. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/810 "2015-07-28T18:11:51Z")
Will her collapse eventually be down to the levels of the Republicans’ peaks, d’ya think? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/811 "2015-07-28T18:16:11Z")
She’s already below some Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2015, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/812 "2015-07-28T18:40:02Z")
Wow! Chris Cilizza said that! Man, if I had known that, my first thought would have been “Who the hell is Chris Cilizza, and why should I give a rat’s?”! ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/813 "2015-07-29T02:38:59Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > A majority of independents are not GOP leaners: > > [Party Affiliation | Gallup Historical Trends](http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx) > > Independents split about evenly between Dem and Rep leaners. It’s true that they aren’t classic “swing voters”, but they aren’t just Republicans. If they were, Democrats would never win, becuase only 28% of voters are Democrats. Let’s first focus on our agreement: they are not the swing voters. They are often partisan, often _more_ partisan than those who have a stated party ID. Those who are not are often those who don’t vote. The issue is well addressed in [this Cook Political Report](http://cookpolitical.com/story/6608). > [@](#): > > Last week, Gallup released polling that showed a whopping 42 percent of Americans identified themselves as independent - the highest percentage ever recorded by the polling institution. > > In the wake of seemingly endless stories of political scandals (government shut-down, [Healthcare.gov](http://Healthcare.gov), Anthony Weiner), voters are understandably reticent about attaching themselves to a political party. > > However, the 42 percent is also something of a misleading number. More than 75 percent of those who label themselves as independent also say they “lean” toward one party or the other. Sixteen percent each to the Democrat and Republican Party. “All told, then, 47% of Americans identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and 41% identify as Republicans or lean to the Republican Party.” Just 10 percent of Americans can be identified as “pure independents.” > > However, it’s also true, that as Gallup writes, “Americans’ increasing shift to independent status has come more at the expense of the Republican Party than the Democratic Party.” The percentage labeling themselves as Republican fell to 25 percent in this most recent Gallup survey - just one point higher than the all-time low for GOP of 24 percent in 1983. Even so, those voters who no longer identify as Republicans aren’t calling themselves Democrats either. The 31 percent of Americans “identifying as Democrats matches the lowest annual average in the last 25 years.” > > In other words, these one-time GOP-identified voters are now identifying themselves as independents. This is what helps to explain how Republicans can win the independent vote and still lose an election. > > More important, however, is the misconception that these voters are embracing an "independent " status because they want their party to pursue a more moderate agenda, or to move to the middle instead of catering to the extreme. In fact, there is evidence that they are abandoning their party labels for the exact opposite reason: they see the party as moving too far from its core values. > > A recent paper for the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy by Kimberley Norman and Zachary Zundel, found that “the majority of Independent voters have political opinions that align with one of the two major parties at least as well as party members.” In fact, they write, “independents who “leaned” toward one party or the other actually had stronger alignment than those who identified as “not very strong” in the same party. Additionally, their results were far more similar with those who identified themselves as being “strong” in their party.” > > In other words, those who call themselves “independent” may actually be closer to the views of the core GOP or core Democratic policy positions than even those who identify themselves as a party member. [Another take:](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/12/1376804/-More-independent-voters-doesn-t-mean-the-country-is-moving-toward-the-center) > [@](#): > > … the Democratic line has been pretty flat for the last 20 years—they were at 33 percent of the population in 1992, so they’ve fallen only 1 percent over the course of two decades. Instead, most of the movement seems to be from the Republican column to the independents. GOPers went from 28 percent in 1992 to 23 now, while indies went up from 36 then to 39 percent now. > > That seems to confirm what recent polls showed about the pool of independents becoming more conservative as the GOP shrinks. Remember in 2012 when Mitt Romney was suddenly getting a much larger share of independents in polls than Republican presidential candidates in previous races had, and Republican pundits became convinced that was evidence that Romney was on track to win (despite swing state polling that showed he was clearly going to lose)? In retrospect, it looks like the alternative hypothesis was totally right—an increasingly large number of hard-right, tea party types could no longer abide calling themselves Republicans and were dropping their party label, even as they still planned to vote for Republican candidates in the next general election. … And if you follow the trend lines, despite the gain in indies, it’s clear we aren’t moving toward some sort of David Broder/Ron Fournier-style centrist paradise where we turn away from partisanship and toward Those Who Lead. The 48 D/39 R split with leaners is almost identical to the 49 D/42 R from 22 years ago. The big difference is that some of those voters who always vote Republican are now disguised as independents … Now it is of course true that not all of the rise of so-called independents consists of those who will always be loyal to the GOP when it comes time to vote. But the group “independent” now consists much more of those who had called themselves “GOP” than in years past. They are NOT moderates and not the same as swing voters… ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/814 "2015-07-29T02:42:49Z")
It is potentially an interesting redux … possibly ending up a Bush and a Clinton going into the general season both under water, the Bush a bit more so than the Clinton but the Clinton viewed as not honest by a majority. All we need now is a Perot. (And Trump need not apply.) ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/815 "2015-07-29T11:24:14Z")
I just don’t think it’s going to be Bush vs. Clinton. Precisely because of their unfavorables, neither is guaranteed the nomination. I doubt both will win theirs. Perhaps neither. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/816 "2015-07-29T12:29:50Z")
Remember though that unfavorables and favorables are like running from the bear … I don’t have to be loved by everyone, just preferred a bit more than the other chump(s) running. As even the WaPo article comes round to noting > [@](#): > > The depth of unpopularity for basically all politicians could well lower the bar for what it takes to get elected president. As in, it’s possible we are in the midst of a sea change in public opinion where our markers of 50 percent support as a sign of good/bad political standing could well be antiquated. Maybe politicians don’t need to be liked by half of Americans in order to win. Again the depth of unpopularity that Clinton and Bush each had going into the general election season was even more dramatic; Clinton did not take off until Perot (who had stripped Bush of many of those who were reluctantly saying they would vote for him) quit right as Clinton was giving an amazing acceptance speech that was aimed directly at those voters. Also, how bad are the major news sources going to get? This isn’t the magnitude of error that NYT was guilty of but > [@WaPo](#): > > Neither of those storylines work in Clinton’s favor when it comes to the Republicans and independents with whom she has lost ground. The lack of a series primary fight drives the coronation idea which independents blanch at, and the focus on her e-mails … (Color mine.) Seriously? A major media outlet can’t catch series being used instead of serious? They cut back on copy editors? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/817 "2015-07-29T12:39:26Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Remember though that unfavorables and favorables are like running from the bear … I don’t have to be loved by everyone, just preferred a bit more than the other chump(s) running. There’s primaries to get through first though, which is why candidates with high unfavorables usually don’t even get to the general election. > [@](#): > > Again the depth of unpopularity that Clinton and Bush each had going into the general election season was even more dramatic; Clinton did not take off until Perot (who had stripped Bush of many of those who were reluctantly saying they would vote for him) quit right as Clinton was giving an amazing acceptance speech that was aimed directly at those voters. Yes, such races draw third party challenges. But it’s important to remember that Clinton was a relative unknown nationally, and until the convention pretty much all most voters knew about him was that he was a philanderer. The first time I saw a picture of BIll Clinton was on Time Magazine’s cover and it said, “Can America Trust Bill Clinton?” Even liberals weren’t sure about him because he was the leader of a faction that wanted the party to move more to the center. If the Democrats hadn’t lost three straight elections Clinton would never even have been considered, as demonstrated by the futility of more conservative Democrats running in primaries since Clinton(Evan Bayh, Bill Richardson, Bob Graham). But Clinton as it turned out had outstanding political talents, which meant that when America heard him he gained in popularity. His wife is well known and her political talent is not such that she can change minds. > [@](#): > > Also, how bad are the major news sources going to get? This isn’t the magnitude of error that NYT was guilty of but(Color mine.) > > Seriously? A major media outlet can’t catch series being used instead of serious? They cut back on copy editors? The Fix is a blog. I’d guess a lot less effort goes into editing than in the print edition. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/818 "2015-07-30T16:04:47Z")
Hillary dodges a Keystone pipeline question: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/28/hillary-clintons-ridiculous-hedge-on-keystone/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/28/hillary-clintons-ridiculous-hedge-on-keystone/) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/819 "2015-07-30T16:11:27Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Hillary dodges a Keystone pipeline question: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/28/hillary-clintons-ridiculous-hedge-on-keystone/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/28/hillary-clintons-ridiculous-hedge-on-keystone/) Yeah, that was pretty lame. It does suggest that she may hold a significantly different view than Obama, in which case she would want to avoid expressing it, but it wasn’t handled well. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458/820 "2015-07-30T16:58:38Z")
[Gowdy has had to resort to making shit up.](http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/07/29/voxs-jonathan-allen-implicates-trey-gowdy-in-th/204654) Caught sooner than expected, that’s all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458.md?page=40) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-un-fork-hillary-thread/717458.md?page=42)