Hillary Clinton: Deep experience with perceived baggage

Washington: On November 8, American voters have an opportunity to elect the first woman president of the United States.

Hillary Clinton also offers voters an unusual amount of directly relevant experience, as a former First Lady, US Senator and Secretary of State. She has a very high level of name recognition, often a helpful factor for a candidate.

Yet, along with Trump, she is one of the two most unpopular candidates for president in the last few decades; an ABC/Washington Post poll released on Monday found that “Clinton is seen unfavourably by 60 per cent of likely voters.” Her many years in the public eye provide her with deep experience but a lot of perceived baggage, including a long list of what many voters see as political scandals that demonstrate her untrustworthiness.

In the Democratic primaries, her main opponent was Bernie Sanders, a senator from Vermont who represented a far-left tilt in the Democratic party and drew support from many disillusioned young voters and liberal Democrats who saw Clinton as too establishment, too closely linked to Wall Street and too moderate.

Clinton won the primaries, Sanders has since supported her against Donald Trump, and polls indicate that she has a very strong lead over Trump among young voters, but her campaign still struggles to inspire enthusiasm among young and more liberal voters.

America is in an anti-establishment mood, expressing anger against political and economic elites. A challenge for Clinton is that many Americans perceive her as one of the political and economic elites.

Also, her opponents constantly remind the public about investigations into Bill and Hillary Clinton while they were in the White House, into Clinton’s role as Secretary of State when the US mission in Benghazi was attacked, and into her use of a personal server for emails during her time as secretary. These issues have coalesced into a generalised sense that there is something suspicious about her. More recently, WikiLeaks has released emails hacked from the account of John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, in an attempt to hurt the campaign.

Possibly more damaging, given the timing, on October 28, FBI Director James Comey said his agency is reviewing some recently discovered emails to see if they might be pertinent to the previously closed investigation into Clinton’s private server, again raising public concerns about Clinton.

However, for most Democrats, some independents and a few Republicans, Clinton represents an antidote to Trump’s brand of divisive identity politics. She has demonstrated a willingness to work with Republicans in the Senate. In the presidential debates and other platforms, she has repeatedly shown deep knowledge of policy details and nuance, from Social Security to foreign affairs.

Clinton has struggled to do better in polls in part because she is a policy wonk in an election when media has paid little attention to policy proposals. On Friday, President Barack Obama, while campaigning for her, said, “She doesn’t just talk the talk she walks the walk. She’s got plans and she’s got details.”

As of October 31, most polls showed Clinton ahead by 1-5 percentage points nationwide. However, the US electoral college system is based on who wins elections in the most states, rather than the nationwide popular vote. Much will depend on the outcome in key battleground states such as Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

It is essential for Clinton’s campaign to ensure high voter turnout among Democrats, women and minorities in key states. On October 31, the widely referenced data analysts at FiveThirtyEight gave Clinton a 75.3 per cent chance of winning and Trump a 24.6 per cent chance.

Clinton has been a less divisive figure for the Democratic party than Trump has been for Republicans, but the party still faces internal shifts.

“I think that for the general election, she has coalesced almost all the Democratic party behind her,” said Dr. Chris Oates, Associate at Oxford Analytica and a US politics analyst.

However, he added, beyond this election, “You’re going to have a left wing with increasingly high demands on what the president should do” and who will be “less willing to compromise.”

If Clinton becomes president, she will also face Republicans in Congress who are determined to block her policy agenda; several members of Congress have already raised doubts about whether they would consider any Clinton nominee for the Supreme Court and have suggested that, if president, Clinton would face constant congressional investigations.