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 Bill Clinton simply is not wielding that kind of influence – good
or bad – over voters so far this year, according to a Reuters/Ipsos
poll. A majority of Americans, including 73 percent of Democrats and
52 percent of Republicans, said Bill Clinton does not factor into
their opinion of Hillary for president. (http://tmsnrt.rs/1OUiYCw)
The poll, conducted Jan. 7 to 13, found that 12 percent of Americans
are more likely to vote for Hillary, the former secretary of state,
because of her marriage to Bill. Among Democrats, fewer than half
said Bill Clinton should be more prominent in his wife’s campaign,
and less than half felt that his presence in the race would boost
her chances of winning.
Bill Clinton, who was widely credited for helping Barack Obama win a
second term in 2012, has become much more active on the campaign
trail this month, especially in New Hampshire, where Hillary Clinton
trails Bernie Sanders in several recent statewide polls. Hillary
called Bill her “not-so-secret weapon” when announcing the move,
though his increased involvement created an opening for Republicans,
especially Trump, to bring up allegations of sexual misconduct that
dogged the Clintons in the 1990s.
Despite two terms of strong economic growth and a trade surplus,
Bill Clinton’s legacy as president has been marked by several
high-profile missteps. Several women came forward during his tenure
in the White House with allegations of consensual sexual encounters.
He also spent much of his tenure fighting accusations of unwanted
advances toward women, including Paula Jones, an Arkansas state
employee, who later filed a lawsuit. In 1998, he was impeached by
the House of Representatives after attempting to cover-up an affair
with another woman, Monica Lewinsky.
After Hillary said that Trump, the Republican front-runner, had
shown a “penchant for sexism,” the real estate mogul took to Twitter
to warn the Democratic front-runner against using her husband as a
surrogate on the campaign trail.
“If Hillary thinks she can unleash her husband, with his terrible
record of women abuse, while playing the women’s card on me, she’s
wrong!” Trump wrote in late December.
Voters, however, do not seem to care. A majority of Americans in the
Reuters/Ipsos poll, including 68 percent of Democrats and 50 percent
of Republicans, said that Bill’s past sexual misconduct “made no
difference” in the current presidential race.
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Among women, 56 percent said it did not matter, while another 21
percent said it would hurt Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the
election. A tiny proportion of women – 4 percent – said they thought
the experience would actually help her chances of winning.
Democrats who turned out to listen to the former president this week
in New Hampshire dismissed the allegations of sexual misconduct as
no longer relevant.
“I just think it’s none of our business,” said Randall Ferrara, a
retired pastor who came to listen to Bill stump in Keene, New
Hampshire. “It’s old news and a weapon they use when they don’t have
anything else.”
Ferrara said he is still deciding between Clinton and her chief
rival, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of nearby Vermont. Shirley
Ferrara, his wife, said that she would be supporting Hillary. She
agreed with the roughly half of Democrats that told Reuters/Ipsos
that the former president “should take a prominent role” campaigning
for his wife and that it would help her.
“I think he would be an asset to her,” Ferrara said.
Rachel Reekie, a Sanders supporter and Keen State University student
who was in elementary school during Clinton’s presidency, said she
was “fully aware” of the allegations.
“It’s not a big deal; it’s over,” Reekie said. “I don’t think his
presence will have an effect.”
The online panel of 1,947 adults has a credibility interval, a
measure of accuracy, of about 4 percentage points.
(Editing by Caren Bohan and Lisa Shumaker)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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