Democratic Support Falls For Hillary Clinton Even Prior To Yet Another Clinton Scandal

Hillary Clinton speaks at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York

There is yet another scandal involving Hillary Clinton, with the latest Reuter’s poll showing a drop in Democratic support for Clinton even before today’s scandal broke. First the latest scandal, then the poll.

Barack Obama came into office promising greater transparency. This included changing email practices following the abuses under George Bush–abuses which Hillary Clinton referred to as shredding the Constitution. We now know that Clinton violated the rules. Obama also wanted greater transparency regarding contributions to eliminate concerns that members of his administration were serving interests other than the interests of the voters. Reuters found that Clinton violated promises made upon taking office regarding disclosure of contributions:

In 2008, Hillary Clinton promised Barack Obama, the president-elect, there would be no mystery about who was giving money to her family’s globe-circling charities. She made a pledge to publish all the donors on an annual basis to ease concerns that as secretary of state she could be vulnerable to accusations of foreign influence.

At the outset, the Clinton Foundation did indeed publish what they said was a complete list of the names of more than 200,000 donors and has continued to update it. But in a breach of the pledge, the charity’s flagship health program, which spends more than all of the other foundation initiatives put together, stopped making the annual disclosure in 2010, Reuters has found.

In response to questions from Reuters, officials at the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and the foundation confirmed no complete list of donors to the Clintons’ charities has been published since 2010. CHAI was spun off as a separate legal entity that year, but the officials acknowledged it still remains subject to the same disclosure agreement as the foundation.

The finding could renew scrutiny of Clinton’s promises of transparency as she prepares to launch her widely expected bid for the White House in the coming weeks. Political opponents and transparency groups have criticized her in recent weeks for her decision first to use a private email address while she was secretary of state and then to delete thousands of emails she labeled private.

The two scandals very well might be connected. While there is no way to prove this after Clinton destroyed some of the email, members of the news media have suggested that if Clinton was hiding anything, it was most likley regarding contributions to the Foundation, as opposed to any smoking guns related to Benghazi. This includes liberal columnist Frank Rich, along with Ron Fournier, who wrote:

“Follow the money.” That apocryphal phrase, attributed to Watergate whistle-blower “Deep Throat,” explains why the biggest threat to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential dreams is not her emails. It’s her family foundation. That’s where the money is: corporate money, foreign money, gobs of money sloshing around a vanity charity that could be renamed “Clinton Conflicts of Interest Foundation.”

Despite all the evidence that Clinton broke the rules in effect when she took office, many Democrats will continue to defend her because of her name and gender. Some Democrats would continue to defend Clinton even if we had  incontrovertible evidence that she kicks puppies and bar-b-que babies. While maybe exaggerating, it seems that there is no crime which will cause some Democrats to question Hillary Clinton–even if it is something they previously attacked Republicans for. So much for consistency or adherence to principle.

Fortunately this does not apply to all Democrats. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll does show support for Clinton to be softening:

Support for Clinton’s candidacy has dropped about 15 percentage points since mid-February among Democrats, with as few as 45 percent saying they would support her in the last week, according to a Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll. Support from Democrats likely to vote in the party nominating contests has dropped only slightly less, to a low in the mid-50s over the same period.

Even Democrats who said they were not personally swayed one way or another by the email flap said that Clinton could fare worse because of it, if and when she launches her presidential campaign, a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

The polling showed that nearly half of Democratic respondents – 46 percent – agreed there should be an independent review of all of Clinton’s emails to ensure she turned over everything that is work-related.

The bigger problem is that while Democrats might stick with her and give her the nomination, by November 2016 a majority of the voters will have had enough of what could be a constant stream of revelations about Clinton. Giving Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination increasingly looks like a death wish on the part of Democrats.

5 Comments

  1. 1
    DK says:

    Conservative Republicans should spend less time whining about the refusal of voters to fall for their hilariously lame Hillary witch hunts and Benghazi ambulance chasing. They should spend more time explaining to voters why their policy ideas would move America forward while Hillary’s would not. If they did so she might not be beating every Republican contender by double-digits and have a higher favorable rating than every Republican candidate as well, both accord. Of course, since Republicans have no ideas besides irrational Obama hate, tiresome Hillary hate, saying no to everything, and wishing to return American to the 19th century — then they are left only to scandalmonger in useless fury, screaming at rocks and walls.
    So after a month of phony selective outrage over emails, Reuters tracking had her numbers with Democrats falling from — what? — 99% to 84%? Haha, is that all conservatives have to celebrate? Sad. Too bad this exact same Reuters poll shows a supermajority of Democrats saying that either the emails had no effect or actually makes them *more* likely to vote for Hillary. The story from this failed and pathetic witch hunt is that Hillary is more trusted and popular than her media and right wing critics. That’s why the Hillary haters are angry. Voters stopped falling for it.
    Americans know Hillary could walk on water and end world starvation with three fish and two loaves of bread, and still be condemned by Republicans and Beltway media hacks. Americans can see plainly that Republicans and untrustworthy scoundrels in the corporate media will question everything Hillary does no matter what — even while ignoring Republicans who do the same thing. No outrage about foreign donations flowing into Romney PACs. No outrage about Colin Powell destroyed all of the private emails he used while at State, or the missing private emails of Bush and Rove. Such obvious and disgusting hypocrisy and double standards.
    The more the haters talk nonsense instead of real issues, the stronger, more sane, and more resilient Hillary looks in comparison. No, Democrats aren’t falling for the lamestream media anti-Hillary hype, fed by right wing fever dreams and endless investigations that waste millions of taxpayer dollars.  Get over it.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Who cares what conservative Republicans say? The problem is that Clinton is far closer to them on the issues, and with their conduct, than they would like to admit. The meaningful criticism of Clinton is coming from the left and not the right.

    It is outright dishonest to pretend that his is just talk from haters from the right. The meaningful criticism is largely coming from those of us on the left who believe in honest and transparent government. The mainstream media, including liberal sources such as The New York Times and NPR have exposed her. In return you echo Sarah Palin with complaints about “the lamestream media.”

    Reuters found not a fall to 84 percent but to 45%, and this is likely just the start. Denying serious problems with Clinton and handing her the nomination only helps the Republicans. What is more important than the fall in support among Democrats today is the risk of a greater drop among the general voting population in the fall of 2016.

    Denial of the facts (something we are more accustomed to seeing from a Republican than someone who claims to be a Democrat) only increases the risk of a Republican president in 2016. Of course you sound like one of the right-wing PUMAs who would prefer a Republican if you cannot have Hillary Clinton.

    There is no double standard. I have had posts up about similar problems with the Republicans. The media has covered the same. The double standard is attacking the Republicans and ignoring the same from Clinton–especially when Obama put stricter rules in place in 2009 because of the abuses by Republicans.

    Clinton is dishonest, a liar. Even more serious than her lies about violating rules re government transparency is the way she spread right wing lies about Iran, claiming that we should invade because of fictitious ties between Saddam and al Qaeda.

  3. 3
    Ron Chusid says:

    Maybe we should resume that old blog game from 2008: Neocon or PUMA. There is so little difference between the two.

  4. 4
    David Duff says:

    Gentlemen, allow me to hold your coats while you get at it.
    Simply too, too delicious!

  5. 5
    Ron Chusid says:

    Having fun, David? If there is a meaningful challenge to Clinton, it will get a lot bloodier. Of course I’m waiting for an all out debate among Rand Paul and the other Republican candidates on issues such as foreign policy and drug laws. Maybe the theocrats will even get into an all out battle over exactly how many angels fit on the head of a pin.

    As for the Democratic race, I don’t have much more use for right-wing Democratic neocons and warmongers than I have for Republican neocons and warmongers. (In other words, I judge politicians by their views and their character, not by party.)

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