Hillary’s health issues are no longer an “alt-right” conspiracy theory, they’re real. And with less than two months left until election day, Hillary is vulnerable. While the mainstream media has largely dismissed Hillary’s health issues as radical conspiracy theories of the “alt-right,” yesterday’s “medical episode” make the issue difficult to ignore (though the AP continues to try by constantly deleting tweets that might be viewed as negative for the Hillary campaign). Perhaps even more damaging for the Hillary campaign is the fact that attempts to cover up her illness, whether it’s pneumonia or something more serious, have now been exposed and just add to voters’ concerns over whether she can be trusted. And while most of the mainstream media rushes to her defense Bloomberg admits that her latest “medical episode” could “mushroom into a political crisis.”
Hillary Clinton’s health threatens to mushroom into political crisis for her in the closing stretch of the presidential race because of her campaign’s handling of an undisclosed bout with pneumonia as much as the diagnosis itself.
The Democratic nominee’s aides moved late Sunday to contain the damage after an eight-hour delay in releasing basic details about her status revived scrutiny of any lingering effects from a 2012 concussion and longstanding criticism about her lack of transparency.
That risked eroding voter confidence in her as she seeks to preserve a narrow lead in the presidential race over Donald Trump, whose allies have raised questions and stoked rumors about whether Clinton is healthy enough to serve.
As former Bush press secretary, Ari Fleischer, noted to Bloomberg, Hillary’s latest “medical episode” draws mass attention to an issue that many Americans didn’t think was real until 24 hours ago. When combining the new health concerns with all of the other “plumes of smoke” surrounding Hillary including questions over the Clinton Foundation, lost emails, Benghazi, etc, Fleischer thinks “politically [this] is a deadly combination.”
“Now for 24-48 hours she’s going to have to suffer through an issue that’s not good for her campaign,’’ said Ari Fleischer, who was press secretary under Republican President George W. Bush “It involves her honesty and her health, which politically is a deadly combination. Then she’ll have millions of eyeballs on her for what previously people didn’t take seriously as an issue.’’
Meanwhile the liberal machine is mounting a defense in the only way it knows how, by labeling anyone who might question Hillary’s health as a sexist.
Questioning Clinton’s health feeds into gender stereotypes, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an expert on political communication at the University of Pennsylvania. “The stereotypes of older women are active and Donald Trump is playing into them — unstable, fragile. They’re stereotypes so we don’t realize when they act on us,” she said.
In fact, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm points out Hillary’s “strength” in “powering through” illness which is apparently what women do every single day. We didn’t realize that women were sick every single day of their lives but we guess we’ll take Granholm’s word for it.
To press lamenting @HillaryClinton‘s health/transparency: “powering through” illness is what women do: Stoically, every. single. day.
— Jennifer Granholm (@JenGranholm) September 12, 2016
As for Trump, he seems to be playing it cool for once while making the media rounds this morning. Trump started his morning on Fox & Friends and wished Hillary well, saying that he “just hope she gets well and gets back on the trail.” He subsequently followed that up with a call to CNBC saying “I hope she gets well and I hope she gets well soon” noting that he takes “no satisfaction” from Hillary’s health problems.
Meanwhile, Trump is subtly forcing the health issue by vowing to release the results of a detailed medical physical conducted last week. Per Fox & Friends:
“Like you I see what I see, the coughing fit was a week ago, so that was Pneumonia also, I think it would have been. So something’s going on, I just hope she gets well and gets back on the trail, and we’ll be seeing her at the debate.”
“I think it’s an issue, in fact this last week I took a medical, and I’ll be releasing when the numbers come in. Hopefully they will be good, I think they will be good, I feel great. When the numbers come in I’ll be releasing very very specific numbers.”
.@realDonaldTrump: I took a physical in the last week and I will release the results this week http://pic.twitter.com/ELJTdL4oEk
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) September 12, 2016
.@realDonaldTrump on Hillary’s health: I hope she gets well, gets back on the trail & we’ll see her at the debate http://pic.twitter.com/1k8vXigpBv
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) September 12, 2016
The full Trump interview on Fox & Friends can be viewed here:
via http://ift.tt/2cl2dlO Tyler Durden