GOP WOMEN TO TRUMP: DUMP SEX SCANDAL TALK
They fear tactic could engender sympathy for Hillary Clinton
Republican women have a message for Donald Trump: Enough with Bill Clinton’s sex scandals.
It’s not that they’re waving Trump off the issue to help Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. On the contrary, they’re worried that the more Trump talks about a troubled period of the Clintons’ marital history, the more likely it could backfire and rally independent and even some Republican women to the side of the former first lady.
GOP officials have mapped out a series of general election attacks on Clinton centered on her record as secretary of State, but that case could become harder to make if the debate is saturated by talk of 1990s-era sex scandals.
Female voters are likely to recoil over Trump’s contention in recent interviews that the former first lady was an “enabler” of her husband’s liaisons, including his affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, said Nancy Dwight, a former National Republican Congressional Committee executive director.
“I’m uncomfortable with it; I just am,” Dwight said.
“She was as aghast by her husband’s behavior as the rest of us,” she said of Clinton. The Democrat has “a ton of tripups” that’ll be ignored if Bill Clinton’s past becomes a dominant theme.
“It’s a distraction,” said Donna Sytek, a former speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives and former state GOP chair. “We should be talking about the debt and security and any number of other things.”
On Fox News over the weekend, Trump said Clinton was not an “innocent victim” and “would go along with him” in her husband’s extramarital activities. Though his comments turn off some, they do resonate with some of his core supporters.
“He should drag her through the mud,” said Ellen Voss, 55, a Trump supporter in North Carolina. “The Republicans need to fight brutal, dirty and pull no punches.”
It’s the latest example of Trump helping his primary campaign while hurting the party in the long term, said Katie Packer, a Republican strategist who advises conservative female candidates.
Packer’s company, Burning Glass Consulting, has conducted a series of focus groups and polling in competitive general election states showing the issue is a political “minefield” for the party in a general election. Trump’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Even before Trump emerged as a force, “our fear was that Republicans will get in over their skis on this Clinton stuff because in a primary, it’s juicy, fertile ground,” said Packer, who served as deputy campaign manager of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign.
“It’s the quickest way to get women to come to (Clinton’s) defense,” Packer said.
News of the Lewinsky scandal broke in January 1998. In December 1997, Hillary Clinton’s favorability rating stood at 56%. By December of the following year as the scandal dominated headlines, her approval rating had jumped 11 points, according to Gallup data. “In the past, when the public’s been the most sympathetic towards her, it’s been under that spotlight,” Packer said. “Going on the offense on that, it’s just dumb.”