Hillary’s health: her problem – or ours?
Her pneumonia diagnosis last week led to international uproar and even caused the FTSE 100 to slump. Why has the health of the notoriously private Hillary Clinton become a major campaign issue? Jill Fillipovic reports
THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE in the race to the White House has pneumonia. In a normal election, this wouldn’t be big news. It’s easily treatable and the same thing happened to Democratic nominee John Kerry in 2004. He didn’t reveal it until months later: because people get sick.
But this is no normal election. Donald Trump has been laying the groundwork for paranoia about Clinton’s health, suggesting she’s hiding some major ailment. His supporters are spouting all sorts of conspiracy theories in the media, ranging from Hillary having suffered a seizure to her having a body double.
What we do know is that Hillary was diagnosed with pneumonia two days before she was seen to stumble at a 9/11 memorial. Since then, aides and her
husband, Bill, have also said that the 68-year-old has a problem with hydration.
Karen Rossi, who has worked on four political campaigns as an aide, says that it’s perfectly normal for candidates to fall ill. ‘Campaigning is one of the most gruelling things a person can go through. For example, every candidate has a cold at some point, just due to human nature and the length of the campaigns.’
By the end of last week, Clinton’s full medical records had been disclosed, revealing nothing more sinister than regular thyroid medication and a ear operation in January to treat a sinus infection. Yet the furore around her health is a uniquely Clinton-shaped problem. She suffers from a reputation for secrecy. When Bill was in office, deceit is something that famously dogged him over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but theories of corruption – most unproven – have swarmed around Hillary for years. Attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a US ambassador in 2012 have been used by the right to pummel Clinton, who was Secretary of State at the time; numerous congressional enquiries have found her blameless, but the negative narrative persists. Her decision to keep her emails on a private server – rather than the government’s secure one – has also been an ongoing scandal, even after the FBI cleared her of any legal wrongdoing.
The assumption around Clinton seems to be ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’. Many consider her inherently deceitful. Trump has played on this, consistently labelling her ‘Crooked Hillary’. Which is why her illness is such a big deal – it plays into a broader story of dishonesty, even if campaign-related illnesses are as regular as kissing babies. With hindsight, she perhaps should have known better than to keep her illness private.
The incident led to both candidates releasing their medical records. Trump revealed to TV personality Dr Oz that his show he’s overweight. He is also taking cholesterol medication. The push for medical records is standard fare in US presidential politics: Obama released a summary of his, and John Mccain gave reporters three hours to scan his to confifirm he no longer had cancer. Given Clinton and Trump’s advancing years, most Americans seem to think it’s reasonable they prove their good health.
Wishful thinking from Clinton opponents that she might drop out of the race has faded – she was back on the trail at the end of last week – and current polls have her leading at 46% to Trump’s 41%. These two are here to stay until November, as is the obsessive coverage of anything resembling a scandal.
HILLARY SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO KEEP HER ILLNESS PRIVATE