Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The Clinton problem

Clinton’s ability to make people dislike her is remarkable. She could still lose this

issue 03 September 2016

′Love Trumps Hate’ has become one of Hillary Clinton’s official campaign slogans. It’s a clunky pun but you get the point. Hillary stands for love — i.e progressive global values, equality, that sort of thing. Donald Trump represents white nationalism, bigotry, all the nasty stuff. Love is good; hate is bad. Trump must be trumped, so that history can keep marching in the right direction.

The trouble is, Americans don’t love Clinton. The feeling they have for her tends more towards hate, actually. Clinton’s ‘favourability ratings’ are famously bad. Between 30 and 40 per cent of Americans say they have a ‘highly unfavourable’ opinion of her. To give you a sense of how woeful that is for an aspiring leader of the free world, Barry Goldwater (the Republican candidate in 1964) and George McGovern (the Democrat in 1972), who are usually cited as the most disastrous presidential nominees of all time, scored 20 and 26 per cent respectively.

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