It's Hillary vs the FBI...and Democrats Are Worried

The CNN/ORC poll released yesterday shows Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump by just 6 points, a dramatic change since July. Trump is one of three Republican candidates routinely matched against Clinton in CNN/ORC polls -- all three Republicans have significantly narrowed the gap with Clinton. Trump does best at 51% for Clinton to 45% for Trump. He trailed Clinton by 16 points in a July poll and narrowed that gap by his gains among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents - from 67% support in July to 79% now. Support for Trump among men moved from 47% to 53%, and among white voters from 50% to 55%. But Clinton still leads overall in the race for the White House, ahead of the top four Republican contenders : she leads both Trump and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker by 6% among registered voters, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush by 9%, and businesswoman Carly Fiorina by 10%. Among Democratic-leaning voters, 44% say they support Clinton for the party's nomination. That's down 9% since July, and is the first time her support has fallen below 50% in national CNN/ORC polls on the race. Meanwhile, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has climbed 10 points since July and is now at 29%. Biden follows at 14%. But, 53% of Democrats want Biden to enter the race, and even among Clinton supporters, 50% want Biden to be in the race. ~~~~~ Clinton maintains this edge in the general election race despite a growing perception that in using a personal email account and server while Secretary of State she did something wrong -- 56% say this in the new poll, up from 51% in March, while 39% now say she did not do anything wrong by using personal email. Among Democrats, those saying she did not do anything wrong has dropped from 71% in March to 63% now, and just 37% of independents say she did not do anything wrong by using the personal email system. The new poll finds that 44% hold a favorable view of her, with 53% having an unfavorable view, her most negative favorability rating since March 2001. A majority of women voters still have a positive view of Clinton -- 52% view her favorably, and her support among women is the foundation for her general election advantage. ~~~~~ One unnamed Democratic strategist told the media : "I’m not sure they completely understand the credibility they are losing, by the second....At some point this goes from being something you can rationalize away to something that becomes political cancer. And we are getting pretty close to the cancer stage, because this is starting to get ridiculous." Hank Sheinkopf, a New York-based Democratic strategist who has worked with Clinton in the past, says that the general suspicion that the she is concealing something is much more damaging than the specifics of the email matter. “It’s hard to imagine Americans in the heartland wondering about whether Hillary Clinton gave up an email server or not,” he said. “But [it adds to] this constant battering she's taking, which is that people don’t trust her. It increases the feeling that something is not being told to them.” Joe Trippi, manager for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential bid, serms to agree. “The thing that’s hurt has been losing the ground she’s lost on trustworthiness and honesty. It’s on trust, not on the specifics of emails or anything like that,” he said. ~~~~~ But Democrats keep coming back to the same unanswerable question : Why did the Clinton campaign not simply hand over the private server when the controversy first erupted in March? “It’s bizarre,” said the unnamed Democratic strategist. “Let me give you some simple strategic communications advice: Put everything out first, on your terms. If you wait, or you are forced to do it, you always lose and look bad....That is exactly what is happening here, and I find it inexplicable." ~~~~~ Clinton’s problems are feeding speculation that another candidate could enter the Democratic race. The two potential contenders usually mentioned are Vice President Biden and progressive icon Senator Elizabeth Warren. Others suggest that Sanders could expand his support. Robert Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign For America's Future, told the media that although Clinton remains “very popular amongst Democrats,...If Hillary continues to sink in the polls and is beleaguered by all of this stuff, there will be more and more interest in other candidates -- including but not limited to Sanders,” It is true that Sanders appears to be exciting the Democratic base more than Clinton -- with events that attract big crowds and include two-way conversations with voters. Clinton doesn't do this. Her large crowds come at conferences and meetings where she is an invited speaker, and she's awkward when she tries to work crowds and talk to people. But, if Clinton is vulnerable, beating her is another matter. Many Democrats must feel they are in a very difficult place. They believe that, in the end, Clinton will be the nominee but they worry that her vulnerabilities could negate the many advantages a Democratic candidate enjoys - from demographics to the electoral college map. So, at some point before the primaries are over, and if the FBI probe continues, Democrats will conclude that Clinton's perceived untrustworthiness outweighs her positive characteristics and they'll decide that she is unelectable. Sheinkopf insists that, at a minimum, the Clinton campaign needs to set aside any sense of complacency. “There are no guarantees. The ship has to get righted. You need to deal with the email issue very differently, by tackling it head-on.” How confident is he that such a direct approach will be adopted? “Fifty-fifty, at best,” he says. ~~~~~ The Guardian is the gold standard of British leftist-socialist newspapers. One of its columnists, Mary Dejevsky, wrote this weekend that Clinton, as she showed during Monicagate, is not one to walk away. But Dejevsky wrote that she hopes there are those, somewhere in Hillary's entourage, who are "even now begging her not to do it, and to bow out while there is still time to do so with grace." Dejevsky says : "Reality must be looked in the eye Clinton is a hugely divisive figure including within her own party - and not primarily because she is a woman. There is the clan question. What does it say about the meritocratic credentials of the United States that two of the most favoured candidates for 2016 are closely related to recent presidents? Neither is to blame but in my book, this alone would be a reason for both Clinton and Bush to be unelectable." Dejevsky continues : "Then there is the Bill question....This should not affect Hillary Clinton’s support – but it will limit her ability to appeal across parties. Nor do US voters need to be dragged all over again through the intricacies of the (loss-making) Whitewater land deal, the involvement of the Rose Law firm, or the suicide of a close aide, but they probably will. And if these Bill questions are not enough, there is another where she really does have some explaining to do : it concerns her involvement with his post-presidential charitable fundraising at a time when she held public office." The left-leaning journalist then takes direct aim at Hillary : "Clinton’s chief liability, though, is the baggage she carries of her own....that private email account...and her handling of the murder of the US ambassador in Libya. The latter suggests a reluctance to accept ultimate responsibility, which is not a good recommendation for a president. The former suggests confusion about where to draw the line between the personal and the professional..." Dejevsky's conclusion? : "...it is now time to call it quits, while the decision is still hers to make. She can cite personal reasons (concerns about her husband’s health, for instance), or the hope that she has left time for another woman – the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren – to run." ~~~~~ Dear readers, the Dejevsky analysis is pure and goes straight to the point. Perhaps a sociaiist journalist who is a woman is best positioned to give Hillary Clinton advice that she might eventually listen to and follow. Hillary's high-handed non-answer this weekend to a reporter asking if she had erased her private server was to joke about using a dustcloth. But she then added the words that reveal her contempt for the law and her sense that she is above it : “We have turned over the server. They can do whatever they want with the server to figure out what’s there and what’s not there. That’s for the people investigating it to try to figure out." Hillary Clinton is playing a high stakes game with the FBI -- and the FBI seldom loses.