Hillary Clinton’s 6-point lead over Donald Trump in last month’s CBS News poll has now evaporated. As of mid-July (even before Trump enjoys a predictable post-convention bump in the polls) she is tied with him. Each garners the support of 40 percent of voters.
This is astounding, given that Trump’s campaign is in shambles while hers is a well-oiled machine; that he’s done almost no advertising while she began the month spending $500,000 a day on ads; and that Republican leaders are deserting him while Democrats are lining up behind her.
The near tie is particularly astonishing given that Trump has no experience and offers no coherent set of policies or practical ideas but only venomous bigotry and mindless xenophobia, while Hillary Clinton has a boatload of experience, a storehouse of carefully-crafted policies, and a deep understanding of what the nation must do in order to come together and lead the world.
What happened? Apparently the FBI’s recent report on Clinton’s email heightened what already were public concerns about her honesty and trustworthiness. Last month, on that same CBS poll, 62 percent of voters said she’s not honest and trustworthy; now 67 percent of voters have that view.
So as the Republican convention prepares to nominate the least qualified and most divisive candidate in American history, the Democrats are about to nominate among the most qualified and yet also most distrusted.
What explains this underlying distrust?
I’ve known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old. For twenty-five years I’ve watched as she and her husband became quarries of the media – especially, but not solely, the rightwing media.
I was there in 1992 when she defended her husband against Jennifer Flower’s charges of infidelity. I was in the cabinet when she was accused of fraudulent dealings in Whitewater, and then accused of wrongdoing in the serial rumor mills of “Travelgate” and “Troopergate,” followed by withering criticism of her role as chair of Bill Clinton’s healthcare task force.
I saw her be accused of conspiracy in the tragic suicide of Vince Foster, her friend and former colleague, who, not incidentally, wrote shortly before his death that “here [in Washington] ruining people is considered sport.“
Rush Limbaugh claimed that “Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton,” and the New York Post reported that administration officials “frantically scrambled” to remove from Foster’s office safe a previously unreported set of files, some of them related to Whitewater.
I saw Kennth Starr’s Whitewater investigation metastasize into the soap opera of Bill Clinton’s second term, featuring Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, and Juanita Broaddrick, among others – culminating in Bill Clinton’s impeachment and Hillary’s very public (and, presumably, intensely private) humiliation.
Then, more recently, came the storm over Benghazi, which led to inquiries about her email server, followed by the questions about whether or how the Clinton Foundation charitable work and the Clintons’ own for-profit speeches might have intersected with her work at the State Department.
It is worth noting that despite all the stories, allegations, accusations, insinuations, and investigations spread over a quarter century – there has never been any finding that Hillary Clinton engaged in illegal behavior.
But it’s understandable why someone who has been under such relentless attack for a large portion of her adult life might be reluctant to expose every minor error or misstep that could be blown up into another “scandal,” another media circus, another interminable set of investigations generating half-baked conspiracy theories and seemingly endless implications of wrongdoing.
Given this history, any sane person might reflexively seek to minimize small oversights, play down innocent acts of carelessness, or not fully disclose mistakes of no apparent consequence, for fear of cutting loose the next attack dogs. Such a person might even be reluctant to let their guard down and engage in impromptu news conferences or veer too far off script.
Yet that reflexive impulse can itself generate distrust when such responses eventually come to light, as they often do – as when, for example, Hillary was shown to be less than forthright over her emails. The cumulative effect can create the impression of someone who, at worst, is guilty of serial cover-ups, or, at best, shades the truth.
So while Hillary Clinton’s impulse is understandable, it is also self-defeating, as now evidenced by the growing portion of the public that doesn’t trust her.
It is critically important that she recognizes this, that she fight her understandable impulse to keep potential attackers at bay, and that from here on she makes herself far more open and accessible – and clearly and fearlessly tells all.
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''deep understanding'', my back paw
The only thing Hillary Clinton has a deep understanding of is how to enrich herself at the expense of others. To the educated professional upper middle class mind, her proposals may look ''carefully crafted'', but a closer look reveals they've been ''crafted'' by the banks and corporations who bought her and now give her their marching orders. If they weren't actually written by ALEC, it's pretty near.
And a ''boatload of experience''?At what?Riding somebody else 's coattails to whatever power she has attained? If her name was Hillary Nobody she'd be sitting on the Chicago Board of Trade and nobody would have ever heard a word out of her.She'd have never been a senator, and parlayed that into a Secretary of State position as a political payoff-- a position she abused by her incessant influence peddling.
She has no more experience that any other political grifter.
.
I saw her be accused of conspiracy in the tragic suicide of Vince Foster, her friend and former colleague, who, not incidentally, wrote shortly before his death that “here [in Washington] ruining people is considered sport.“
He may very well have been speaking of Hillary herself as the most vicious of "ruiners," if a number of insider "tell-all" books are at all accurate.
https://www.amazon.com/Clintons-War-Women-Roger-Stone/dp/151070678X
_______(signed) The Official "Humorless Zealot" of SmirkingChimp.com
And not that
And not that long ago...there is this story that I never seen on MSM....
the hole big money has dug for us
Big money, more often than not, decides who the candidates will be and who will win. As sad as it makes me, and with big money on hillary’s side, my money is on Hillary to win.
We are so deep in the hole big money has dug for us and put us into, right now I do not see us getting out any time soon and getting control of our government back. All we got is a few short ladders.
_______"No creampuffs, just transportation."
WONDERING
Could we could get a movement going for Jill Stein not because all of us completely support her or her ideology but in order to rock the Election to another conclusion?
If the Dems make headway with the Congress a decision for President made in the House might turn out better than trump or clinton..Stein? or would she defer to Sanders?
Not informed enough about this contingency to predict the various outcomes but an enormous # of voters want ...
(And now for something completely Different...!!!!!!!)
Could we take the Energy now ping ponging from depressed resignation to spitting sputtering rage and concentrate on getting a Sh*tLoad of Voters to vote for Stein?
Maybe it's time to bet it all on US...WE THE PEOPLE and go for broke. Can it be any worse than four ...Gawd...four years of TRUMP? or CLINTON?
What say you all..and you with the brick,put that down..I'm just asking?
_______
_______53.1 v 45.2 and rising
Robert, you're wrong about her never having acted illegally
In her email scandal alone, it's clear from Comey's statement and his testimony in Congress that she acted illegally in a number of ways, some of them felonies. Comey admitted that she did send secret information over her home email, despite her having said she did not, and that there were even some such emails, marked "secret" among ones that she had deleted from the batch she sent over to the FBI, falsely claiming they were just private emails "about grandchildren and parties and such."
She also lied about this to Congress in testimony there.
These are lies, which clearly explain why people don't trust her. They are also crimes, except that Comey, reaching beyond his authority as the nation's top cop and usurping the authority of a Justice Department prosecutor, claimed they were not prosecutable on the false theory that there was no "intent" to commit a crime. He was wrong about that, as intent is not the standard when a law is broken. Gross negligence is enough, and clearly at a minimum Clinton was grossly negligent in insisting on exclusively using a private server during her tenure as Secretary of State.
She did that to deliberately and consciously and conspiratorially violate the Freedom of Information Act, which requires that all government communications be searchable and made available on request to citizens and the media. Hillary didn't want her communications searchable, because she clearly was selling her office to the highest bidders while working at State. And you ask why she's not trusted?
She's not trusted because she is a deceitful, power-hungry and greedy person. Why else and how else would she and Bill Clinton have amassed a quarter of a billion in wealth since leaving the White House? My god! It's not as though either of them has any marketable skills beyond influence peddling!
It appears that Americans have the good sense to recognize crooked and scummy behavior when they see it, and that's what they're getting with Clinton -- a money-grubbing shill for the banks, military contrators, private prison companies, pharmaceutical industry, energy companies and the rest.
Bernie Sanders had it right on the campaign, until he sold out to Clinton for what? Probably a promise of a chairmanship should the Democrats be lucky enough to win back the Senate.
Clinton is absolutely the worst candidate to be about to win the Democratic Party's nomination since the death of FDR, and she may even be so bad that Donald Trump will end up winning despite her co-option of the hapless Sanders (whom I supported enthusiastically until his cave-in).
You want Clinton to come clean with the American public, and to be open and engage the media and answer questions, but you know the problem? She can't. Her corruption and her inability to tell the truth is who she is. It's not a construct of a "huge right-wing conspiracy," and it's not the result of media bloodhounds (she was basically given a free ride by the media through the primaries, which ignored, then red-baited, lied about, and then lied about Sanders through the entire process, while anointing Clinton as "unstoppable" after each primary along the way. She's destroying herself and her candidacy because she cannot hide the fact that she's a crook and a liar.
Dave Lindorff
founding editor of ThisCantBeHappening.net
The Clinton “Reason Why”
The following just about says it all:
You want Clinton to come clean with the American public, and to be open and engage the media and answer questions, but you know the problem? She can't. Her corruption and her inability to tell the truth is who she is. It's not a construct of a "huge right-wing conspiracy," and it's not the result of media bloodhounds (she was basically given a free ride by the media through the primaries, which ignored, then red-baited, lied about, and then lied about Sanders through the entire process, while anointing Clinton as "unstoppable" after each primary along the way. She's destroying herself and her candidacy because she cannot hide the fact that she's a crook and a liar.
Any questions?
§ § §
Compliments and well-said, Mr. Lindorff.
_______"You don't need a Weatherman, to know which way the wind blows." - B.Dylan
One Question Gray Raven
Are you disenfranchising we vagina voters?
This is history in the making!
Gender
No we're not. Gender has nothing to do with this. I would welcome a woman president but just not Hillary. She's earned this by being a political wind vane that points to which ever direction she thinks will benefit her and as the wind shifts, so does she.
PROFESSOR REICH
Robert Reich, you are a Professsor at Berkeley!....From where do you get the dimwitted idea that Hillary Clinton is "QUALIFIED" to be President?....Is that what you tell your naive, admiring students?
_______Scava
Superlative Response Grey Raven
Kudos, Sir, on both your manners and wit
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trust, class warfare and 2008
The 2008 bailout fundamentally changed politics throughout the world and especially in the U.S.
Prior to that trump would not have had a chance. Prior to that Bernie Sanders impact would have been similar to Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich. Prior to that jeb would have been taken seriously.
Why do we not trust hilary or bill or george or jeb or newt or any of the rest of the gang of characters that got us here? During the (bill) clinton regime a lot of us did not come out better off despite all the sell job done on how good those times were. And the clinton regime set up the failure of 2008 by removing the Glass Steagall restrictions that were put on the banksters. Those restrictions existed for very good reason and came from bad experience of deregulation. The clinton's pulled the democratic party toward the republiCONs, abandoning traditional democratic labor constituencies, selling us out on free trade, regulation of investment scammers and maintenance of the social contract.
hilary has taken more money in from the banksters who wrecked our economy for a few hours of talking than I can make in 10 years of honest work. Of course I cannot trust her. The banksters expect something in return for their money. Either she is making false promises to them and therefore untrustworthy or she is in the room selling me and honest people down the river. She should never have taken that money. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for those speeches is in itself corrupt. The money was stolen from us in that bailout scam. Any hands that touch it are dirty. No amount of sell will make up for a badly broken product.
It should be appalling that trump is even within striking distance of her. trump is an awful human being and an incompetent failure, having divorced and gone bankrupt repeatedly. It is a measure of how damaged our society and politics has become by that bailout, the open demonstration of a rigged economy and political system. The clinton's played their role in rigging that system. The democratic party has made a serious mistake by nominating her and turning its back on Bernie Sanders.