Young voters not swayed by Bill Clinton's history

[webfact]

Young voters not swayed by Bill Clinton's history 
BILL BARROW, Associated Press

 

ATHENS, Ohio (AP) — Ignoring his own sexually aggressive predilections, Donald Trump wants voters to see Bill Clinton as a scandal-plagued cad whose history with women should disqualify Hillary Clinton from the presidency.

 

The argument doesn't seem to resonate with America's youngest voters, who know the 70-year-old former president as a figure out of history books and don't seem to care about his Oval Office affair with Monica Lewinsky or other marital infidelities. Many of them describe the white-topped, bespectacled grandfather more as Hillary's famous husband than a central figure to consider as they weigh their 2016 ballot.

 

"I'm here for Hillary, not for Bill," said 19-year-old Rachel Onusko, an Ohio University sophomore who attended the former president's recent campaign appearance at the Athens campus. "It's great that he's supporting his wife," Onusko continued, "but the main factor is not, 'Oh, her husband was the president.' For me, the message is, 'Hillary is a strong woman and this is what she stands for.'"

 

To be sure, millennials have yet to embrace Hillary Clinton fully, even as they reject Trump. A national GenForward survey in September found 54 percent of adults age 18-30 had a negative view of Clinton, with 75 percent feeling the same about Trump. And Bill Clinton isn't necessarily the best Hillary Clinton supporter to convert skeptics: President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, the only White House couple the youngest voters have followed closely, are the ones who draw massive, shrieking crowds of young people.

 

Hillary Clinton's campaign implicitly concedes the point, with Bill Clinton's recent and coming schedules in Ohio, Florida, Iowa and other battlegrounds tilted to union groups and African-American audiences. Still, an August Gallup poll found the former president with a 56 percent approval rating among adults ages 18-29.

 

Perhaps most encouraging for Bill Clinton in the millennial pursuit — and ominous for Trump — is that Onusko and many of her contemporaries express bewilderment and even disdain over the Republican nominee's broadsides about the ex-president's sexual history and Hillary Clinton's actions in the political fallout.

 

"Bill Clinton was abusive to women," Trump said in the second presidential debate, as three of the women who allege unwanted sexual encounters with Clinton sat in the audience at Trump'sinvitation. "Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, and attacked them viciously." He'd raised that subject intermittently before.

 

Hillary Clinton did not directly address Trump's accusations that she had taken part in aggressive efforts by Clinton associates to discredit women who had gone public with allegations about her husband.

 

Even before the disclosure of an explosive 2005 tape in which Trump boasted in vulgar terms about imposing himself on women at will, young people hardly regarded the billionaire as a man who respects women.

 

"The only people I know who support Trump are men, mostly older men," said Selena Peterson, 19, of Canton, Ohio, who voted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary but has no qualms about voting for Clinton over Trump.

 

Dominic Detwiler, 18, from Lancaster, Ohio, was a Sanders supporter who is deciding between Clinton and the Green Party's Jill Stein — but not because he's contemplating Bill Clinton's treatment of women. "I'm over the whole Monica Lewinsky thing," he said of the White House intern at the center of the 42nd president's 1998 impeachment. "I mean, would I have divorced him if he'd done that to me? Sure. But that wasn't my decision; it was Hillary's."

 

It's certainly not that young voters aren't familiar with Bill Clinton's transgressions, confirmed or alleged. "Impeachment was one of the first things we learned about him in school," said Peterson, "and, of course, people in history class would make the Monica jokes."

 

Will Maher, 25, of Fort Collins, Colorado, was 7 years old in 1998. "I remember my parents turning off the television during the news and saying, 'We're not going to discuss that,'" he said. Maher, who hasn't decided how to vote, says: "If he was running again, maybe that would matter." As for Hillary Clinton, "I judge her as her own candidate, in the present."

 

Madison Sloat, a 19-year-old from Pittsburgh who has backed Hillary Clinton from the beginning, agreed. "It shouldn't be an issue that impacts her at all. It makes me mad that he wants American citizens to blame Hillary for all of that."

 

That attitude suits the former president fine. "He's been making those attacks since the beginning of this campaign, so I don't think there's anything new," Bill Clinton told reporters in Ohio. Days later, he sat silently in his wife's VIP box, feet from the debate stage where Trumpbellowed, "There's never been anyone in the history of politics ... so abusive to women."

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-10-12

[Jingthing]

Great, there's hope for the USA if young Americans see through the diversionary lies of the trump monster. 

[Rancid]

Agree Bill's past should not affect Hillary and should be ignored.

 

It should be her shameful record, the Clinton Foundation and her corruption of everything she touches that should be the issue.

 

That young voters can completely ignore all that just shows the failings of an education system that has eliminated objective thought as a criteria and replaced it with mindless acceptance of what they see on TV.

 

You'd think they could at least run across this on YouTube - "Hillary Clinton: A Career Criminal". Horrifying she can even legally run for President.

[Luckysilk]

They probably don't want to bad mouth Bill just in case he's their father.

 

 

[midas]

well it seems the hacker collective " Anonyomus "  does care. Following Wikileaks' recent release of leaks, Anonymous reminds Americans of  wrong-doings  in a video containing a well researched list.

 

 

 

 

[phantomfiddler]

Like the many voters who voted for Yingluck because "she had such a nice smile", I think the same would apply to hillary, who,s smile could melt an iceberg on the equator. That,s all you need in an uninformed or ignorant society :)

[williamgeorgeallen]

17 hours ago, Rancid said:

Agree Bill's past should not affect Hillary and should be ignored.

 

It should be her shameful record, the Clinton Foundation and her corruption of everything she touches that should be the issue.

 

That young voters can completely ignore all that just shows the failings of an education system that has eliminated objective thought as a criteria and replaced it with mindless acceptance of what they see on TV.

 

You'd think they could at least run across this on YouTube - "Hillary Clinton: A Career Criminal". Horrifying she can even legally run for President.

lets not forget hillary was actively involved with covering up bills crimes and attacking his victims.

[iReason]

^^^

Oh look!

 

A meme!

 

Shucks. It was on the internet.

 

Can you go a step further and substantiate any of the claims listed in your spurious "evidence?"

 

Carry on.

 

I'll wait...

[ivan96822]

The Clintons are liars, phonies, and corrupt politicians...

[ivan96822]

Trump is no choir boy, but at least he is not a liar who smears and threatens Bill's victims...

[ivan96822]

Hillary is also a two-face...

 

Trump spent years as an entertainer, not a politician...

 

What millionaire is not arrogant and pursuing women?

 

Which of you has not had a vulgar conversation about a woman you would like to score with?

 

At least he was not sexually harassing women like Bill. Assaulting them like Bill...

 

At least Trump did not help a child rapist avoid prison like Hillary. At least he was not caught on tape like Hillary, laughing about how she saved a rapist from prison, a man who raped a 12 year old girl...

[ivan96822]

It is a shame if Clinton's entitlement and all of thrle mainstream establishments who are so anti-Trump TELL THE PUBLIC what to think.

[ivan96822]

...allow her to get into the White House...

[hawker9000]

'Most of them clueless to begin with.  Their vote hinges entirely on the "cool factor".  Can't name the capital of their own state or find it on a map or name the current VP.   What depth.

 

 

[Jingthing]

'Most of them clueless to begin with.  Their vote hinges entirely on the "cool factor".  Can't name the capital of their own state or find it on a map or name the current VP.   What depth.
 
 

Neither choice is cool.

[Jingthing]

Hillary is also a two-face...
 
Trump spent years as an entertainer, not a politician...
 
What millionaire is not arrogant and pursuing women?
 
Which of you has not had a vulgar conversation about a woman you would like to score with?
 
At least he was not sexually harassing women like Bill. Assaulting them like Bill...
 
At least Trump did not help a child rapist avoid prison like Hillary. At least he was not caught on tape like Hillary, laughing about how she saved a rapist from prison, a man who raped a 12 year old girl...

Stop the lies. Hill was working as a public defender. It was her job to defend mostly guilty people. The laughing was not at the victim but at the accuracy of polygraph tests which the accused passed.

[Srikcir]

19 hours ago, midas said:

it seems the hacker collective " Anonyomus "  does care

How many votes does Anonymous have in the POTUS election?

[Saladin]

Dear Donald, I am really confused. Who's running for President - Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton? What have Bill's past indiscretions got to with anything?

[Jingthing]

12 minutes ago, Saladin said:

Dear Donald, I am really confused. Who's running for President - Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton? What have Bill's past indiscretions got to with anything?

Deflection is all it's about.

[Neurath]

The squealing of the piggies as they near the abattoir door. 

[Snig27]

27 minutes ago, Saladin said:

Dear Donald, I am really confused. Who's running for President - Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton? What have Bill's past indiscretions got to with anything?

 

They have as much to do with it as the other bizarre batsh*t crazy conspiracy theories his followers in these forums seem to think have some credence. It's a last refuge of a failed campaign (and one assumes, a business in some trouble hereafter - the MAGA chorus can't afford his hotels and casinos and nobody else will want to go near them).

[ivan96822]

6 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Stop the lies. Hill was working as a public defender. It was her job to defend mostly guilty people. The laughing was not at the victim but at the accuracy of polygraph tests which the accused passed.

Damn, you are dumb...

 

Hillary can not be trusted. 30 years of reasons why...

[Jingthing]

Just now, ivan96822 said:

Damn, you are dumb...

 

Hillary can not be trusted. 30 years of reasons why...

I'm dumb, huh? You can't rebut what I said, so I'm dumb.

Welcome to my ignore list. 

[ivan96822]

Ooo, too bad. Welcome to my dude-supports-Clinton-list-therefore-dude-is-super-lame...