Friday, August 19, 2016

The One Candidate Who Could Make Hillary Clinton Likeable


Hillary Clinton has long been seen as generally unlikeable by nature, even before voters begin to factor in scandal and corruption. Whereas her husband was the Charmer, Hillary was always the feared Enforcer—from her time pushing health care reform in the 90’s, to Obama’s sarcastic “likeable enough” comment in 2008, to the current campaign. Bill has always been just one of the gang, someone you could have a beer with. Hillary was always the strict principal who always gave detention. No one wants to hang out with the principal.

Hillary hasn’t changed. But her competition has.

Polls measuring the “likeability” of the two candidates aren’t easy to find, but both Clinton and Trump score about equally bad on measures of honesty and the all-important question of “cares about people like me.” More broadly, both candidates’ favorability ratings are historically terrible for presidential nominees. Roughly 53% of voters view Clinton unfavorable; around 61% view Trump the same way.

And even aside from the polling data, both candidates seem to exude an arrogant, holier-than-thou attitude. Clinton speaks like a scolding principal; Trump speaks like the bully at recess. Neither has the type of personality most people would want to spend time with if they had any choice in the matter, but more and more voters seem to be deciding that they’d rather be scolded than bullied.

Way to go, GOP. You managed to nominate the one person who makes Hillary Clinton look almost likeable by comparison.



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