A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

Bill Straub: Close polls show voters holding Clinton to a different standard than Trump


WASHINGTON – It’s once again drawing close to that time when, as Pete Townsend famously wrote, “I’ll get on my knees and pray we don’t get fooled again’’

Fat chance.

The presidential election, now less than six weeks away, remains tight. The website FiveThirtyEight, which has proved to be the most successful prognosticator over the past few campaigns, determined in its most recent polling analysis that Democrat Hillary Clinton has only a slight edge, drawing about 46.4 percent of the vote to 44.8 percent for Republican businessman Donald Trump. Her chances of winning on Nov. 9 are placed at 55.8 percent.

There are two overriding questions that have persisted throughout the campaign that likely will draw the attention of historians and analysts long after the final votes are tallied. One is: Why are so many voters predisposed to hate Hillary Clinton, despite a resume that positions her as one of the most qualified candidates in the nation’s history?

The other, sort of a corollary: Why does Donald Trump remain so popular despite clear evidence of bigotry bordering on racism, if not crossing that line, underhanded business dealings and a consistent history of lies?

There is never a single answer to questions like these. Voters respond in different ways to different stimuli. But there may exist a consistent theme in most of the cases. As Sherlock Holmes famously said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’’

That seems especially prescient in the case of Clinton, a former first lady, a U.S senator for eight years and secretary of state during the first four years of President Obama’s administration who has carried out her various duties with sophistication and intelligence.

So, of course, people can’t stand the sight of her.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that only 41 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of Hillary Clinton while 56 percent maintain an unfavorable one.

And voters don’t trust her. In what can only be described as breathtaking, those surveyed generally view Clinton as less trustworthy than Trump. A Bloomberg poll recently showed only 27 percent rate her truthfulness as excellent or good, to Trump’s 37 percent, which, frankly, makes no sense whatsoever.

By any fair judgment Clinton has actually done very little to earn such public enmity. She has been under almost constant attack from right wing foes since first appearing in the public square almost 30 years ago, at first refusing to bow to the mores of Arkansas when her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was elected governor there (I’m reminded of the quote by baseball Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock, a native, who said, “Arkansas is the Land of Opportunity. And when I got the opportunity I left.’’) through the time she famously said she refused to stay home and bake cookies.

Clinton has been accused of all sorts of nefarious deeds. She has even been accused of murdering Vince Foster, an old friend and deputy White House counsel during the first six months of Bill Clinton’s administration who committed suicide. Investigators took years looking into the Clintons Whitewater land investment and found no wrongdoing. In fact the Clintons claim to have lost money in the deal.

There was the Benghazi incident where U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three others were killed in 2012 during her time as secretary of state. She was accused of overseeing lax security at the facility where the attack took place and then offering a bogus reason for the assault, citing a video denigrating the Muslim prophet Muhammed as the starting point for the troubles – although that was the assumption at the time.

And then, of course, there are the emails – government business conducted through her private account. She has acknowledged poor judgment and offered assurances that her devotion to privacy will hereinafter be held in check. Her critics have done everything except call for the reconstitution of the Nuremburg Trials to address what is ultimately an inconsequential matter. An FBI probe brought no charges.

Of course what’s lost in all this is that she represented New York most capably during her eight-year tenure in the Senate, kept the peace during her time at Foggy Bottom – she was secretary of state when Osama bin Laden met his just deserts at the hands of the Navy SEALs – and is as knowledgeable on the issues as anyone.

Yet voters insist she constantly lies, even though they remain foggy over precisely what lies she keeps spouting. And by any standard measure, opposing Trump in a face-to-face lying competition, she would be trounced like the Dunellen High School Destroyers facing the Denver Broncos.

Still the reputation follows her and one of the answers, undoubtedly the most significant, is sexism.

Here I have a confession to make. Over the past many months I have tended to downplay the sexism charges. I knew it existed to some extent but I reasoned — if that’s what you want to call bumbling about — that being a black man carries just as much baggage with the electorate as being a white woman and Obama won two national elections. Voters, I imagined, had gotten past white v. black, male v. female.

I was wrong.

Hillary Clinton is obviously being held to a different standard than Donald Trump. She isn’t “likable,’’ whatever that means. She’s running for president, not to serve as your BFF. Trump maintains she doesn’t look like, nor does she have the stamina, to serve as president, although women tend to live longer than men.

And, of course, there’s the all-time favorite – she’s “shrill.’’

That’s all code for god doesn’t intend for a woman to be president, despite her obvious qualifications. When a man like Trump is characterized as aggressive it’s considered a good quality. When it’s used to describe Clinton, it’s intended as a denigration. And those who don’t want to see her in the White House certainly aren’t shy about calling her a bitch.

Think about it. If Hillary Clinton displayed the qualities of Trump – bigotry, misogyny, bullying, bellicosity, a tendency to prevaricate with a long list of shady business dealings trailing along like ducklings behind their mother, she would be shoved off the public stage. Trump appears to benefit from those characteristics.

Sexism isn’t the be-all and end-all of the campaign. A New York Times/CBS News poll released in mid-September showed, surprisingly, that Clinton is supported by 52 percent of women likely to vote in November – a smaller number than one might expect for the first woman presidential candidate of a major party who is being opposed by a man with a long history of misogyny.

Clinton is not a perfect candidate. She readily admits that she isn’t as talented a campaigner as her husband or any of a number of other politicians. But she’s Abe Lincoln standing next to the likes of Donald Trump.

And where does Trump’s support come from?

During his debate with Clinton he displayed no grasp of policy or anything approaching the truth for that matter. Yet he is within a whisker of becoming president of the United States of America despite a number of peccadillos that should disqualify him from holding any public office.

In a normal political year, even in many abnormal political years, Donald Trump would be a national embarrassment. And rightfully so. This is a man who derides one of the world’s major religions, calls women pigs, refuses to pay people for work rendered, refers to a Latina beauty pageant winner as “Miss Housekeeping,’’ has had, according to the Wall Street Journal, regular contact with people who had ties to organized crime, displayed overt racism by question Obama’s country of birth long after everyone else had abandoned the shtick, started something called Trump University, a joke of an institution facing a bevy of fraud suits and comingles his personal finances with that of a foundation he created.

And that’s just the beginning. During his debate with Clinton he displayed no grasp of policy or anything approaching the truth for that matter.

Yet he is within a whisker of becoming president of the United States of America despite a number of peccadillos that should disqualify him from holding any public office.

It would be funny if tragedy were not knocking at the door.

The story here is white men and, to a more limited extent, white women who fear they are losing their spot atop the hill. The Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that Trump leads Clinton 76 percent to 17 percent among white men without college degrees. A Langer Research Associates poll determined that 38 percent of Trump supporters think minorities have too much influence in American society.

Various polls released over the past few months showed that 65 percent of Trump supporters believe Obama is a Muslim; 59 percent believe Obama wasn’t born in the United States; 40 percent believe blacks are more “lazy” than whites; 31 percent support banning homosexuals from the country; and 16 percent believe whites are a superior race.

These folks are revolting against a culture they believe is pushing them to the outside, forcing them to look in without reckoning they have done that exact same thing to varying degrees to other demographic groups. As Arlie Russell Hochschild said in her book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, Trump supporters claim that other people – those with brown and black skin – are “cutting in line.’’

Race, Hochschild wrote, “is an essential part of this story.’’

So white folks are willing to countenance Trump’s often overt racism and bigotry to keep others from cutting in line, ignoring his obvious grotesquery to maintain the status white folks have held since the founding of the republic. They want a change in direction and they believe Trump will provide it.

But there’s good change and bad change. Switching from Budweiser to Guinness is a good change. Switching from Bud to strychnine is bad. But that seems to be what white voters are anxious to do this election.

Bill_Straubz-343-281x300

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.


Related Posts

7 Comments

  1. ruth bamberger says:

    I have followed the Clintons for 40 years. I lived in SW MO many of those years and that region was in the Arkansas media market. They were vilified almost from day one when Bill entered public office in the state.
    I make no excuses for his personal behavior, but why do pundits denigrate Hillary for what her husband did when they make no big deal about Trump dumping two wives and now married for a 3rd time?

    You are spot on to note that Clinton’s 8 years as first lady, 8 years in the Senate, and 4 as Sec. Of State give her the knowledge and diplomatic tact to be President at a very difficult time in history. This is an election where common sense and principle must take precedence over party politics.

  2. Green Tea says:

    She is a serial liar … she is currently under investigation by the FBI … she created ISIS, albiet inadvertantly … she moved thousands of jobs overseas … she made millions off of the Haiti earthquake while the poor suffer … she has committed perjury repeatedly … she took $25 million from Saudis who support female genital mutilation, who behead homosexuals and who will not let women drive or attend college … she got 4 people killed in Benghazi and tried to cover it up … she brokered a deal allowing a large percentage of US uranium to be sold to Putin in exchange for $5 mil donation to Clinton Global initiative … her deputy chief of staff, Huma Wiener, is a Sharia loving Muslim who worked for Bin Laden support group on 9-11-01 … she was involved in the Iran deal where we sent them $4 billion and gave them parts to build nukes to bomb us … in 30 years of public service, there is not one accomplishment that she can point to of any significance.

  3. Jill Dew says:

    I agree. Women have always known that, in order to get a job traditionally given to men, they must be at least twice as good, twice as smart.

    The issue with people not trusting her comes from Fox’s constant reiteration that she’s “crooked”, despite the fact that all fact-checkers say she’s one of the most transparent, most honest people in government today.

    As for the e-mails — where was the brouhaha when Bush #2 deleted MILLIONS of them? Rice and Powell did it, too. Why wasn’t this a problem when the Republicans were in the White House. Because it’s standard practice to delete e-mails. People in business do it all the time.

    Benghazi? How about Congress taking some responsibility for cutting the funding for the protection that was missing?

    I’m with Ruth Bamberger here — “This is an election where common sense and principle must take precedence over party politics.” Unfortunately, I seriously doubt if this will happen because many people thing (1) politics is a sport, or (2) politics is a reality t.v. show.

  4. Marv Dunn says:

    Green Tea: You really need to take your meds.

  5. Green Tea says:

    one accomplishment in 30 years? … Anyone? … Buehler? … Buehler?

  6. Marv Dunn says:

    She stayed married to Bill. Not an easy task. Your guy -1-2-3, ….Buehler

  7. Michael Thornton says:

    “By any fair judgment Clinton has actually done very little to earn such public enmity”? Really? I reckon you’d have been a fan of Al Capone back in the day as she’s the 21st century version reimagined as a political animal so focused on herself that she’s willing to let one of her own ambassadors die than potentially upset her applecart. That she has no redeeming qualities is further evidenced by the media turning a blind eye towards the entire Clinton family while bashing a boastful braggart of a businessman (Ross Perot wasn’t derided nearly as much). I can only hope that history will show this point in time as the death of objective reporting.

    Jill, you’re delusional if you truly believe Hillary is “one of the most transparent, most honest people in government”… Dangerously so as that goes beyond simply being a sycophant, parroting the partisan platitudes, to the point of blind allegence, which suggests to me an acknowledgement that you believe someone else can better tell you how to live than you can yourself.

    Marv, anyone with half a brain can recognize a marriage of convenience, especially a political one such as the Clinton’s. What’s astounding is that blind devotees like Jill ignore how Hillary has attacked the women her husband took advantage of, even when denigrating the office to which she aspires, all so she could advance her political career.

Leave a Comment