The biggest mistake of the Clinton campaign thus far.

[kentuck]

There was no surrogate to come out and defend her when the media and the Republicans started the meme that she was not "honest or trustworthy". She began the campaign with about 65% approval rating. But, gradually her polls have gone down to the point where more people now believe she is more dishonest and untrustworthy than Donald Trump. That is devastating.

No doubt, the campaign believed that to respond to such charges would only have made it worse? Perhaps? Perhaps not?

In my opinion, this is the biggest drag on her campaign at this time and is the biggest factor in Donald Trump's popularity being where it is today.

There should have been a response to the "honest and trustworthy" polls when they first began.

[beachbum bob]

1. no to argue but she didn't start the campaign a year ago with 65% trustworthiness approval

the years of the Benghazi committee witch hunt knock her down before that....what she SHOULD have done was early on run ads featuring the republican staff member quotes, who was on that committee, saying it was done SOLELY to bring her approval numbers down as a partisan with hunt

[kentuck]

2. Here is a timeline:

http://www.people-press.org/2015/05/19/hillary-clinton-approval-timeline/

[beachbum bob]

3. I'm talking about the single issue of "trustworthiness"...been in the dump for a while

before primary season started in earnest

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. 65% favorable was Dec 2012. That's when you count as the start of the campaign?

('favorable' is used more often as a general question about a public figure; 'approval' is normally about a specific job, or hadnling of an issue; despite the URL, that graph is headed 'favorability'). There are a lot of favorable/unfavorable figures here: http://pollingreport.com/hrc.htm (and a few 'trustworthy' ones too). In general, it was about April 2015 that her unfavorable figure overtook her favorable figure.

[exboyfil]

4. She should have weaved this interview

into a response.

Casper Weinberger passing the buck on the Marine Corps Barracks bombing to Ronald Reagan.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/01/30/aide-reagan-left-marines-vulnerable-in-beirut.html

His butt should have been sitting in front of an investigative committee for 11 hours, and, in light of what he said, President Reagan should have been called.

[Agnosticsherbet]

5. The campaign to delegitimize Clinton began Oct. 3, 1991, when Bill announced his run for President

It accelerated when she ran for the Senate, entered overdrive when she ran in 2008, and achieved Warp Factor 45 when she started her run in 2015.

This campaign against her has been among the most successful uses of the "Big Lie" in my lifetime. It was not a mistake. It was built into the system long ago.

Powerful women, in my opinion, scare the shit out of people, not because they are bad, but because their power is perceived as threatening to males. It is long past the time when the culture should get over this.

[BlueCaliDem]

7. ^^^This!^^^ eom

[frazzled]

10. I think it began even earlier, when she became First Lady of Arkansas

And used her maiden name, and continued to work, and didn't dress or do her hair like a proper Arkansas First Lady. This transplanted midwesterner/northeasterner was not to be trusted. We've all seen those tv interviews from the time.

[Agnosticsherbet]

13. I suspect you are right. But I can trace the big lie about her back to that point.

with ease.

[unblock]

6. she was always going to be dogged by this line of attack because they've been using it for eons.

and i'm not sure how you really get out in front of something like this.

many attacks do require hitting back, but sometimes it's better to shrug it off, laugh it off, talk about something more important, etc.

[world wide wally]

8. In all honesty, it should be the 4th estate's obligation to point out the truth.

This is why a candidate needs so damn much money to run for office these days. The media wants to be the driver...not the reporter or referee. Just ask Mike Wallace about fact checking.

[NightWatcher]

9. It's hard to defend vague generalities like this.

She's been ready to shoot down specific problems as they arose, but how would you fight vagueness like this?

[karynnj]

12. There were surrogates who obliquely addressed this by speaking of her life long positions on

important issues. In addition, there was a nice Atlantic (I think) article by Jill Abraham, who had been the NYT editor. Her article looked at HRC over time and the conclusion was that she was basically honest. That conclusion is not based on whether everything HRC ever said was factual, but whether she actually has presented herself as what she is. It is easy to make the case that what she says she is for, she is for. It does concede that HRC's secrecy and lack of transparency causes people to see her as less honest than she is.

This, like any vague or subjective attack, usually can not be successfully defended by surrogates just saying it is not true. Consider the various charges against Al Gore (being wooden, exaggerating,elitism, being boring etc) - note that the people who charge them just need a few catchy examples - where if supporters find counter examples they invariably do not dislodge the defining ones. (The same is true when most of the same charges (being wooden, elitist, boring ) were attributed to Kerry, who genuinely has one of the most fascinating backgrounds and personal histories of anyone who has run in modern times -- even though his eloquence as a 27 year old is still cited. )

I think what destroyed the 65% approval was the email issues and how she handled it. From day one, it was harmful as the obvious conclusion was that she intended to hide her communications from scrutiny. Even if you accept all the reasons why this was an easier way to operate, she should have had a separate work account on the private system and she should have handed the contents of that account to the State Department when she left. Considering that there were FOIA requests even before she left, I really do not understand how she thought this would not be discovered. Then when it was disclosed, she changed elements of her story several times. This directly impacted people's perception of her honesty. The really sad thing is that there really was NOTHING there to hide and had she given the SD the emails, we likely might never have known any of this.

What surrogates have tried to do on this issue is to speak of things ranging from ending Citizens United to regulating the banks, I really think the best solution would be to address transparency directly. Imagine if HRC outlined how she wanted to keep whatever improvements the cabinet positions have made under Obama and build on them to insure that government documents of all types that should be retained - are retained in a system that allows a much more efficient, timely method for finding everything that fits a FOIA request. (They would still need the experts to read the resultant documents and go through the whole complicated process of redacting what must be kept secret. ) Icing on the cake - would be if she could say her intent is to leave office with good practices so entrenched that any cabinet secretary in the future would know that there is precedent and accepted rules in how to handle all documents - mentioning that that was NOT the case when she took office.

I don't know whether a claim that she would insure transparency as President would counter her actions that were against transparency as Secretary of State would make a dent in that negative characterization, but it is worth a try if that is what she would commit to doing.

[loyalsister]

14. There is no use in trying to counter this

No, she hasn't told deliberate lies on the stand. But as most politicians, she has deflected, obfuscated, omitted and justified. People stereotype politicians as dishonest because of those very common techniques. Some politicians do it gracefully, HRC is awkward with it and shows defensiveness. Thus, people don't trust her.

So what? I think we should move on because we aren't going to change people's minds.

[kentuck]

15. You are probably correct?

It would have focused just that much more on her emails, Benghazi, etc.

Because the media, whether we admit it or not, are stenographers for the business class, i.e. Republican Party and their ideas.

[loyalsister]

16. I think the public doesn't see a lot of difference between lying and deflecting

or other avoidance communication strategies. And, rightfully so. It trips our honesty evaluation monitor. I think maybe instead of delegitimizing it, encouraging people to use it on their own republican politicians could be worth looking into.