Election ‘the worst’
As an ugly campaign draws to a close, a stark reality of low expectations awaits the next American president, writes John Wagner.
WASHINGTON Jennifer Petticolas arrived early at the Hillary Clinton rally, and there was no doubt that the Democratic nominee would get her vote.
But the retired educator said the biggest draw for her was Mothers of the Movement – women appearing on the programme with Clinton who have lost children to gun violence or in the custody of law enforcement.
As the African-American grandmother of a 3-year-old, Petticolas said she prayed for the day that her grandson would be able to walk down the street and not be viewed suspiciously by police because of his skin colour.
Asked what she thought the Democratic nominee could do to help with that, Petticolas sighed – and then confessed that her expectations aren’t terribly high for a candidate she considers only ‘‘the better of the two’’.
‘‘This is the worst election I’ve ever seen,’’ Petticolas said, ‘‘and I’m 68 years old.’’
With the end of an ugly contest between Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump drawing near, such frustrations underscore a stark reality confronting Clinton if she reaches the White House: much of the country will have very low expectations for what she might accomplish.
The race has tightened in recent days in the wake of news about renewed FBI scrutiny of Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. But even with a volatile electoral map, Clinton retains more paths to the presidency than Trump.
It’s not that Clinton has been stingy in offering policy proposals. Over the course of her candidacy, she has put forward a slew of plans, many of them incremental, to expand healthcare access, make childcare more affordable, raise the minimum wage and invest in the country’s infrastructure, among many other things. But in a campaign dominated by both candidates’ efforts to tear down the other, not much of that seems to have broken through.
In campaign stops across Florida earlier this week, Clinton said she wanted to give people something to vote for, not just against. But what made headlines were her blistering critiques of Trump, whom she accused of avoiding taxes and ‘‘degrading, insulting and assaulting’’ women for decades.
Some voters simply don’t trust Clinton. But interviews with dozens of voters in battleground states – including many who attended her rallies – have unearthed a far broader skepticism about her ability to work with a divided Congress and change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington, DC.
Just 35 per cent of registered voters in a survey published last week by the Pew Research Centre said Clinton would make a good or great president. Another 20 per cent predicted she would be average, while 45 per cent said she would be poor or terrible.
For Trump, the numbers were even worse – 56 per cent said he would be poor or terrible.
‘‘It’s not about having high expectations,’’ said Claudia McConnehead as she sat in the bleachers waiting for the start of a Clinton rally in Daytona Beach, Florida.
‘‘We’d backslide under Trump. I can’t imagine there’s anything he’d do for me. It would be worse. It would be about hate.’’
McConnehead, who recently retired from a job at Florida’s Department of Elder Affairs, said that among the issues she would like the next president to press were improving the Affordable Care Act and expanding Social Security benefits. But she didn’t have high hopes for cooperation between Clinton and a Congress that has thwarted President Barack Obama far too often.
McConnehead, who said she was in her 60s, said she hoped Clinton had learned the lessons of her email scandal. But she had also grown weary of the issue.
‘‘At this point in the game, I’m really not paying attention to these email aggravations,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m focused on getting this election over with.’’
Sitting a few sections away, Kandi Simons, 58, who lives in nearby Ormond Beach, also drew heavily on her feelings about Trump to explain why she had cast an early ballot for Clinton.
‘‘I feel like she’s going to stand up for me more than a billionaire with no experience,’’ Simons said, adding that she considered Trump a sexual predator.
Simons, a former social studies teacher who now owns a gym, said she understood the good that government could do, citing how she, as a cancer survivor, had benefited from the Affordable Care Act. But she argued that one the biggest reasons to support Clinton was to prevent bad things that could accompany a Trump administration, such as new restrictions on abortion.
Saher Ismail, who lives in Suffolk County, Virginia, was a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries but has now started volunteering for Clinton’s campaign.
Ismail, an Indian-American Muslim, said she was prompted to do so by a haunting question her pre-teen daughter asked her: ‘‘Can Mr Trump put us in camps?’’
Ismail, 47, said her daughter had suffered nightmares because of the election rhetoric she had heard, including Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.
She said she had no real enthusiasm for Clinton’s candidacy or much hope that she would be able to accomplish much in Washington.
‘‘She’s going to have a really, REUTERS really hard time,’’ said the stay-athome mother of one. ‘‘She needs to work on her image, have better answers about the emails and the Clinton Foundation.
‘‘She has a lot of issues she needs to work out even within the party.’’
Many Trump supporters talk about what a Clinton presidency would bring in apocalyptic terms.
‘‘Oh my God, it would be even worse than Obama, and Obama was really bad,’’ said Gail Gorham, 77, a Republican who lives in Derry, New Hampshire. ‘‘We would go down. I think we’re going to have to hit bottom to get back up again.’’
Other voters say they have grown so disenchanted with Washington that they’re not sure Clinton will have any significant impact.
‘‘I can’t image that anything will be any different than it has been [for] the past 20 years,’’ said Chris Tape, 49, a high school science teacher in Cincinnati. Washington Post