Today, Hillary's favorables come in at 54 percent, which is down from a high of 66 percent in 2012. Now if this were a poll about you or me, we would probably not much care, since who gives a crap what percentage of people who don't even really know you say they have a "favorable view" of you? But if your entire life is focused on your political/presidential viability, this is a pretty serious matter.
So can you guess the one and only reason Hillary's favorables are declining? It's something very basic. It's not Benghazi. It's not Boko Haram. It's not the State Department misplacing $6 billion during her tenure. Those are all examples of her being a terrible Secretary of State, but they're not the reason her favorables are declining.
It is this: Because Hillary is raising her profile in preparation for her presidential campaign, people are seeing more of Hillary Clinton. That is a very bad thing for Hillary's favorability ratings, because when people actually see Hillary, they don't like what they see.
When people say they have a favorable impression of Hillary, what they really mean is that they like the idea of Hillary. They like the idea that a First Lady is strong, smart and confident in her own right, and had the ability to be an effective and successful U.S. senator and a cabinet member. They like the idea of a woman strong and capable enough to do all these things, and because the Hillary! brand is put forward as representing these things, people express positive feelings about it.
The problem is that the actual person who is Hillary Rodham Clinton is not these things at all. She is not smart. She is not capable. She does not do a good job at anything she does. She is not strong and independent, and only gets political opportunities because of who she is married to. She is also not honest. She also does not have any compelling ideas. She is also shrill. She is also mean and ruthless. She is also self-absorbed.
And when she gives interviews designed to promote a book that really offers nothing worth reading, she gets noticably irritated when she is asked questions designed to hold her accountable for her performance in the jobs she got because of who she is married to.
Many people, when observing a person who behaves in this way, can instantly recognize these traits and will not have a favorable reaction to them. Not everyone, to be sure. Some people are so steeped in left-wing politics, or so sold on the notion of the Hillary! brand, that they have lost all ability to understand what their eyes are seeing. But this is not most people. So as Hillary does her media tours and public appearances designed to burnish her credentials as a presidential candidate, she will face the difficult problem that is herself, and the ability of normal, well-adjusted people to notice that she is an insincere fraud with nothing to recommend her.
Am I suggesting that this will become an even bigger problem when her campaign for the presidency actually commences? Yep. In fact, I don't even have to suggest it. It's already happened. Remember, she already ran for president in 2008, and it was thought her nomination by the Democratic Party was inevitable. Why didn't she get it? Because the more people saw of Hillary, the more they recognized she is not all that and a bag of chips. We all know now that Barack Obama has been a terrible president, but as a candidate in the Democrat primary race, he was appealing in all kinds of ways Hillary was not, and also will not be in 2016.
Oh, I'm sure she's working hard right now with image consultants and pollsters who are coming up with ways to "soften her image" or "project her as tough" or whatever they think they need to do to change public perception of her. But what they can't change is who she actually is, nor can they change the ability of reasonably smart people to perceive what she is.
I wouldn't be surprised to see her favorables rise again once her book tour is over and she disappears for awhile. Because then people will be giving their impressions about the idea of Hillary! rather than the person herself. The idea seems a lot more appealing when you don't have to listen to the shrieking person behind the curtain.
Hillary is going to be in serious trouble in 2016 unless she finds a way to run for president without letting the public see much of her. The brand that is Hillary! might stand a chance of being embraced by the public. The actually person that is Hillary Clinton never will, because she is unappealing in every way.
