HRC’s Approval Numbers
Steven L. Taylor
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Wednesday, December 20, 2017
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15 comments
Via FNC: Hillary Clinton popularity hits all-time low, poll shows.
Seeing the headline generated two thoughts almost simultaneously. First, the Fox New obsession with HRC is just weird. Second, who cares?
Of course, it is weird for a losing candidate to continue to see numbers like this fall. I honestly wonder how much of it is people who blame her for losing and providing us with President Trump (who isn’t exactly setting the world afire in the popularity department himself).
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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My thought when seeing the headline, but then again I’m in the firmly 100% pure “Hate Clinton for losing to Trump” camp.
It particularly irks me that every time Trump or one of his sons wants to excuse some BS behavior on their part, they go, “But what about Clinton?” It’s like they know, deep down, that they owe everything to her.
I’m 63 and a baby boomer. I’m beginning to hate my whole generation.
Hillary is EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEvil.
@Scott:
Same age, same sentiment. Why Millennials aren’t hunting us in the streets I will never know.
@michael reynolds: Because my children still love me? Hopefully, global warming will get rid of the ice floes.
@michael reynolds: That might make a good book.
@James Pearce: “My thought when seeing the headline, but then again I’m in the firmly 100% pure “Hate Clinton for losing to Trump” camp.”
Well, I guess that’s a step up from “Hate Clinton for being a woman daring to go after a man’s job” or “Hate Clinton because she’s shrill” or “Hate Clinton because I’m scared of women” or all your previous reasons…
Are you guys serious? How the Democrats managed to nominate someone who could lose to Trump is kind of an important question. Those who do not learn from history and such.
Mike
There’s no doubt Hillary Clinton’s greatest failure was losing to Trump. But she shares this distinction with a half dozen Republicans, who should have trounced the silly season candidate in the primaries.
@wr:
Please….. None of those were my reasons.
Mention her e-mail server. Mention her pretending not to have pneumonia. Mention the “superdelegate” BS she pulled with Obama. Mention that her ambtions far outreached her capabilities. Mention the fact that she’s been nothing but a liability for Democrats for 20+ years.
@Kathy:
Its interesting how often this is overlooked. The GOP were thought to have a good chance in this election (before Trump) simply because its very hard for the same party to win three in a row. Which means they had a lot of very serious candidates for their nomination.
Trump beat them before he beat Clinton. I suppose that should have been a warning that he wasn’t going to be as easy to beat as people thought. It definitely should make it clear that losing to him isn’t a mark of an awful politician.
Of course, what it says about America that Trump won is altogether something different.
@MBunge:
Or, to put it another way, how 62 million Americans came to the deeply-warped conclusion that that a real estate sames man, con man, and grifter like Donald Trump was fit to be president is kind of an important question.
@al-Ameda: The weird thing about this formulation, which MB has shared often, is that the blame for Trump is on the Democrats, not the Republicans who nominated and elected him.
Further, MB seems to both be dissing Trump while supporting him at the same time. I stopped trying to square than circle a while back.
And, as I like to point out, the main answer to the question is not about the Dems nominating HRC, but rather how we, as a country, continue to insist on using a horrible electoral system to select our president.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I think this electoral system worked more-or-less well as long as both parties refrained excessive gerrymandering, but with 2 elections in the past 16 years resulting in minority-elect Republican presidents, the cover has been ripped away and people now see that the problems have come home to roost.
I do not think that abolishing the current electoral system is a real possibility, however, I do think that some kind of recalibration is necessary, not quite sure how it gets done in the current political super-fund/cesspool environment.
One thing I like about the electoral college system is that without it …. well can you imagine Trump, having lost the popular vote narrowly, petitioning for recounts in, say, 10 states? Recounts might well go into January.
@al-Ameda: I agree the chances of reform are almost zero.
The recount issue is not as unmanageable as it is often stated to be. And, the mathematical odds of overcoming an almost 3 million differential are quite small.