After weeks of fighting off rumors of ill health, thanks in large part to fake medical documents, Hillary Clinton had to leave a September 11 memorial ceremony early after feeling overheated and weak; her doctor says she’s recovering from pneumonia.
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There she made clear that she was not anywhere close to declaring victory. “Because we really are ‘stronger together'”. The race appears to be tightening nationally as well as in key battleground states.
A weekend of stumbles has Hillary Clinton suddenly looking vulnerable at a pivotal moment of her battle with Donald Trump. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic - you name it.
“She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart and she wouldn’t be prosecuted”, he declared. “I regret saying ‘half, ‘” she explained in a follow-up statement, “that was wrong”. It was then that the memorial turned memorable. The former New Mexico Governor is polling at an unprecendented 11%. One TV reporter quoted a law enforcement source to say she appeared to faint and had to be helped into a van. “She has a lot of different paths”.
The footage was more than a blow to her dignity.
Trump, whose Twitter account is normally on hair trigger alert, was unusually quiet Sunday. The Democratic presidential nominee left her daughter Chelsea’s apartment shortly after 11:45 a.m., waving at people gathered on the sidewalks. Her coughing fits, the effects of allergies, are on loop on talk radio. She concluded that Clinton is in “excellent physical condition and fit to serve”.
But plans to rekindle her image of steady leadership in crisis went awry when she was forced to leave a commemoration ceremony at Ground Zero early due to a “medical episode”. Neither Clinton or Trump have released anything approaching that level of detail. “On Friday, during follow up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia”, Clinton’s physician said in a statement released from the campaign. She was put on antibiotics and was “recovering nicely” after the 9/11 event. “While at this morning’s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. And I just don’t know anything about him”. “They are Americans and they deserve your respect”, he said. And 90% of Republicans now say they support their party’s candidate, which shows the party is finally coalescing around its unconventional nominee. “I won’t stop calling out bigotry and racist rhetoric in this campaign”, she said in her explanation on Saturday. “For the first time in a long while, her true feelings came out, showing bigotry and hatred for millions of Americans”, he added.
Leaders quickly also sent talking points to allies, hoping they would pick up the pieces and defend their party’s nominee. That one point margin is now 2.3 points in the most recent survey.
Trump, for his part, looks to be making the blueish New Hampshire and Nevada more competitive than they have been in recent cycles.
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In Arizona, the poll interviewed 649 likely voters for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points; in Georgia, the poll interviewed 625 likely voters for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points; in Nevada, the poll interviewed 627 likely voters for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points; and in New Hampshire, the poll interviewed 737 likely voters for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. Her aides have always been protective, anticipating the worst-from her and the from the press-and it’s often been grounded in sound reasoning. Polls tend to narrow as Election Day nears, and the Clinton campaign has struggled to overcome controversy about how she handled classified information while serving as secretary of state.
