Why Can’t Hillary “Put Away” Trump?

Donald Trump is always bragging that he’s a winner and everyone else is a loser. We’ll see how much of a winner he is in a few weeks. On the other hand, we may see how much of a “loser” Hillary Clinton is. She walked into the 2008 campaign as the presumed nominee. Then, along came that little-known rookie senator from Chicago—an African American, at that!

Hillary was able to “put away” her ancient socialist opponent (Bernie Sanders) this year, but not easily, nor early—and not without a lot of help from the Democratic establishment, if we can believe the stolen Wikileaks emails, published by an avowed Clinton hater, Julian Assange, according to Newsmax.

And the almost-daily document dump is being orchestrated because of a grudge WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has against the Democratic presidential nominee, The Hill reports. . .

And while Assange doesn’t officially back Donald Trump, the real estate tycoon’s unofficial adviser Roger Stone told CBS Miami Wednesday he has “a back channel communication with the website boss.”

Now, Hillary is running against the candidate with the highest disapproval ratings since polls were taken in this regard. And she’s also getting a lot of help from Donald Trump, who often says things that make no sense at all—such as attacking some of the most popular Republican leaders, instead of Democrats.

And, of course, there’s the character issue. With all the salacious news, and Americans’ unquenchable thirst for prurient politics, the Wikileaks emails have gotten almost no attention from viewers and readers, so the media haven’t paid much attention, either. That leads to wall-to-wall discussions of what Trump did to whom, and whether either side can be believed, in those battles. Apparently, the public believes Trump’s accusers.

Trump’s campaign manager says that Hillary should have been able to “put away” Trump easily.

Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump’s campaign manager, said Tuesday night she can’t believe Hillary Clinton isn’t pulling away from her candidate in various battleground states given her numerous built-in “advantages.”

Citing Clinton’s massive fundraising lead on Trump and claiming the Democratic nominee has the media on her side, a common refrain for the Trump campaign, Conway derided Clinton on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on Tuesday night for not being able to build a majority in swing-states where the Republican nominee has tumbled lately in the polls.

“She has so many advantages. She has endless money. She’s got a lot of the media. She has a very popular president and first lady campaigning for her,” Conway said. “I will tell you, I am mystified as to why she can’t get to those 52, 53 percent numbers in some of these states given the disadvantages we’re handed every day.”. . .

“I don’t feel sorry for us,” she said. “I just think we’re going to win this because people love a comeback story.”

Conway is not the only one who is wondering why Hillary “can’t put it away.” Hillary asks the same question.

Hillary Clinton wondered aloud Wednesday why she wasn’t trouncing her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, in the polls.

After running through some of the core tenets of her campaign in a video conference call with supporters in Las Vegas, the former secretary of state said: “Having said all this, ‘Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?’ you might ask?”

The media have the same question, too.

A reporter asked Hillary Clinton at a press conference Thursday morning why the presidential race was so close, considering her characterization of Trump as dangerous and unqualified to hold the Oval Office.

“Madam Secretary, the latest RealClearPolitics average has you up by an average of 2.8 percentage points over Donald Trump,” the reporter said.

The reporter continued: “Given what you say are his historic inadequacies and his disqualification on the commander in chief point that you just made, shouldn’t you just be pretty much running away with it at this point?” . . .

In the immediate aftermath of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Clinton surged to a double-digit lead over Trump. However, in recent weeks that lead has evaporated, putting Trump in striking distance.

Even Trump’s supporters seem to be acknowledging that Trump could lose.

la-times-trump-clinton-who-will-win

Add another item to Donald Trump’s list of problems: More and more, his own supporters no longer think he can win, the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Daybreak poll has found. . .

The Daybreak poll asks people whom they plan to vote for and which candidate they expect will win. The question of voter expectations has often, although not always, proved to be a more reliable forecaster of election outcomes than asking voters their candidate preference.

Hillary’s supporters are asking, in particular, why Hillary didn’t get a big bump back after the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording showed Trump’s “access” with women. The answer is that the shocking news also reminded people of Bill Clinton’s old indiscretions, and charts show that the popularity of both candidates immediately fell—at about the same rate.

In fact, rallies have gotten more raucus on both sides. Recently, “protestors” have been shouting “Bill’s a rapist” at media events. Turns out, these people are motivated by cash, not ethics.

In the midst of this brutal and never-ending carnival of an election, you’d think we’d run out of new ways to humiliate ourselves as a nation. But you’d be wrong: Protesters wearing “Bill Clinton is a Rapist” shirts are disrupting Clinton rallies, because the conspiracy site InfoWars is offering them $5,000 to do so. . .

The official contest rules are on InfoWars’ own site; they’re framing it as “exposing” Clinton and say they’ll give $1,000 for yelling and $5,000 for yelling in a T-shirt. (They’re also selling shirts with Cinton’s face and the word “RAPE” underneath, in the style of the famous Obama “Hope” design.)

That’s the level of “political discussion” this year. But the Clintons are trying to cope.

During a rally last week in Detroit, a man wearing a shirt calling Bill Clinton a rapist shouted down Hillary Clinton and was removed from the rally.

“You know, I do hope somebody follows that gentleman out and stages an intervention,” Hillary Clinton said. “He clearly has not been following this election very closely.”

In Iowa on Wednesday, Bill Clinton said a similar protest was “what’s wrong with American politics.”

“Give that guy a hand — they’ve had a very bad week in the Trump campaign, and he feels bad,” Bill Clinton said as a protester shouted “you’re a rapist!” “Give him a hand! The problem is, if you only listen to one television station, and nobody ever tells you the truth, you get like that.”

And that’s why Hillary “hasn’t been able to put it away.” While Trump is the most disliked candidate in history, Hillary is second most disliked. And that makes it hard to vote for either of them this year.


Goethe Behr

Goethe Behr is a Contributing Editor and Moderator at Election Central. He started out posting during the 2008 election, became more active during 2012, and very active in 2016. He has been a political junkie since the 1950s and enjoys adding a historical perspective.

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