Mr. President, It’s The Corruption, Not Sexism That Is Clinton’s Problem
This article originally appeared in Forbes.
While Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was leading the State Department, The Clinton Foundation accepted a $1 million gift from the sovereign nation of Qatar. Despite having signed an ethics agreement promising to notify the State Department if a new foreign government wanted to donate or if a current foreign donor wanted to “increase materially” its contributions, Clinton did not notify the State Department.
Regardless of the ethics agreement, it is far-fetched to think a $1 million gift to a foundation run by the sitting Secretary of State’s family shouldn’t be disclosed as immaterial.
This is just the latest in the long line of shady decisions that Clinton has made that at the very least give the appearance of corruption. From storing her emails on a private server to getting questions from members of the media in advance of debates, there is an endless dribble of stories that lead voters to question Clinton’s judgment.
Four days after FBI Director James Comey sent a letter informing Congress that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Clinton’s use of a private server, President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail for Clinton and named sexism as the barrier preventing people from supporting her. He said,
To the guys out there, I want to be honest. You know there’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman president before and I think that sometimes you know we’re trying to get over the hump…I want every man out there who’s voting to kind of look inside yourself and ask yourself. If you’re having problems with this stuff, how much of it is you know that we’re not just used to it?
Dismissing the “mistakes” Clinton has made by reminding the audience that we all make mistakes, he continued to hammer on sexism:
When a guy’s ambitious and out in the public arena and working hard well that’s OK, but when a woman suddenly does it, suddenly you’re all like – well why’s she doing that?
It’s easy to blame sexism. The President is correct that we haven’t had a female president. But with Clinton, it’s corruption, not sexism that is the more obvious problem she has to overcome.
Corruption scares Americans. The Chapman University Survey of American Fears found that “corrupt government officials” is the top fear of 2016, above a terrorist attack, “not having enough money for the future,” or even “people I love dying.”
In the ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll from October 30-November 2, when likely voters were asked what “is the single most important issue in your choice for president,” corruption in government was the second most popular answer after the economy and jobs. And likely voters trusted Trump more to handle the corruption issue 48 to 39.
In the most recent ABC News/Washington Post tracking pollfrom November 1-4, likely voters find Trump more honest and trustworthy. Trump has gained momentum at the end of the election as Clinton was leading in this question earlier in the campaign.
We won’t know until Tuesday night if Clinton will break what she calls the “highest, hardest glass ceiling” by winning the presidency. But we do know that she has broken the glass ceiling on the appearance of political corruption.
