About Those "Unfavorable" Ratings

We've been seeing for months stories citing the "unfavorable" poll numbers for both former Secretary Hillary Clinton and neo-fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump. The numbers are the worst in many years, although Rump's are catastrophically high. But the unfavorables of Clinton and Rump are dissimilar in their foundation.

Before he announced his candidacy, Rump was known primarily for his properties and his TV reality show, and with the exception of his nasty and dishonest "birther" attacks, was largely out of the political arena. However, with his entry into the Republican primaries, his profile and his negatives rose. Rump's unfavorables as a Rethug campaigner stem from his outrageous statements about women, Latinos and others, from his thuggish demeanor, bragging and narcissism, and from his extreme (and shifting) positions on issues. They don't stem from 30 years of attacks and smears directed at him.

Hillary Clinton has been in the crosshairs of Rethuglican operatives since her service as a legal staff member for the House Committee on the Judiciary which was about to impeach Richard Nixon before he resigned in August 1974. Diehard Rethugs and Nixon bitter-enders have never forgotten that, and they dogged her from her role as First Lady of Arkansas onward. The Clinton Presidency was marred by manufactured "scandals" -- Rose Law firm billing records, "Travelgate," the Vince Foster suicide, and many more -- that were spun by the likes of the sinister "Arkansas Project," an effort by right-wing sugar daddy Richard Mellon Scaife to tar the President and First Lady. Lately, ever since it's been clear that Hillary Clinton would be the likely Democratic nominee, the Rethug scandal guns were trained on her.  First was the Benghazi Benghazi BENGHAZI! bandwagon, which so far has boomeranged on Congressional Rethugs who admitted that the purpose of their hearings was to bring down her poll numbers. Next, the admittedly self-inflicted private e-mail server problem and the handling of sensitive information by Clinton, which is awaiting an FBI report to determine any if there was any breach. Rethugs have been flogging that for all its worth, with innuendo and speculation that the broken political media has eagerly lapped up.

So while Rump's unfavorables directly correlate with what comes out of his mouth day in and day out, Clinton's are driven by years of relentless, false negative attacks on her by well-funded right wing political ratf*ckers.