OPINION:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who announced her bid for the presidency April 12, has now gone 24 days while taking just seven questions from the media — one of which she answered with “I’m having a great time.”
The reclusive candidate, who popped into a Chipotle on her way to Iowa but hid from the “regular Americans” she said in her announcement video she represents by donning dark sunglasses, hasn’t taken questions from the national media in weeks.
The strategy is in sharp contrast to Republican candidates, including former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who announced her candidacy on Monday and then took dozens of questions in two separate sessions with reporters. What’s more, Fiorina took questions on Good Morning America, and then was interviewed by Katie Couric and Sean Hannity, along with a few others.
Two weeks after Hillary announced, the National Journal compiled the seven questions she had faced by then. Two were on the slew of reports that her Clinton Foundation had accepted cash from foreign donors in exchange for favors; one was on how she prefers small groups of voters (actually supporters); one was about the propsed trade pact; one was on her plans to revamp campaign finance rules; one was on a political action committee set up to support her candidacy (to that one she answered “I don’t know”); and the last was about her loss in Iowa last time around (to which she said, “I’m having a great time, can’t look forward any more than I am.”).
Although the State Department acknowledged on Monday that it had looked into the Clinton Foundation allegations and found nothing wrong. Clinton blamed “the political season” for what she called “distraction and attacks.”
“It is, I think, worth noting that the Republicans seem to be talking only about me. I don’t know what they’d talk about if I weren’t in the race. But I am in the race, and hopefully we’ll get on to the issues, and I look forward to that,” she said to one. To the other, she said “You know, those issues are, in my view, distractions from what this campaign should be about, what I’m going to make this campaign about, and I’ll let other people decide what they want to talk about. … Thank you, all.”
The silence from the de facto Democratic nominee corresponds with her drop in the polls. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC found that the number of people who have a “negative” view of Clinton has risen 6 percent. Now, 42 view her positively, 42 percent view her negatively. Just 25 percent of those surveyed say they believe she is “honest” — down another 10 percent from a poll in 2014.
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