April 14, 2015, photo: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with local residents at the Jones St. Java House in LeClaire, Iowa. (AP)
We’re now almost at the close of the second week of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president and we have yet to hear anything but talk of scandals.
This week it’s more talk of foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation and what State Department favors may have been traded in exchange.
If Hillary is going to go from scandal to scandal – email servers to donations and who knows what’s next – she’s surely not going to be as successful as she can be.
To be sure, the latest issue with the Clinton Foundation and foreign donors raises real questions. But these are not questions about any legal violations that the Clintons or the Foundation may have committed. They are questions centered on the import of appearances, apparent conflicts of interest and politics.
If Hillary is going to go from scandal to scandal – email servers to donations and who knows what’s next – she’s surely not going to be as successful as she can be.
Make no mistake about it, both sides in this dispute have a substantial amount of right on their side. There are certainly open questions about Hillary and Bill Clinton's practices. And the Clintons are right that this is a matter is about politics and an effort to undermine Hillary Clinton's candidacy. This is a position that John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign manager, and other Clinton operatives have adopted and are right to do so.
That being said, there’s every reason to believe that the Clintons should take this latest controversy, largely embodied in a New York Times article about a Russian company getting a major stake in the uranium business in America, as a serious problem.
Indeed it is serious because there is the appearance that a Russian company, and a large donor at the Clinton Foundation, was able to buy influence at the State Department.
Notwithstanding that, there were three or four levels in the review process before the decision was made to allow the Russians to buy the plant. And it is also absolutely the case that contributions/favoritism almost certainly played in no role in the State Department’s decisions making.
Still, the fact that the Clinton Foundation has decided to keep accepting foreign government donations, as limited as they may be to six nations, remains a powerful storyline and will continue to do so throughout the campaign.
This type of decision making is taking its toll.
In the latest Quinnipiac poll, Clinton receives 60% of the Democratic vote and only bests Marco Rubio 45-43 in a general election vote, well within the margin of error. Furthermore, when asked whether Hillary was “honest and trustworthy”, 45% of voters agreed and 51% disagreed. This represents a 9-point drop from a year ago.
Can the Clintons' change stop the bleeding? Absolutely.
What they need to do is simple. They need to stop taking foreign money, especially money from foreign governments, throughout the duration of the campaign. This includes foreign business gifts.
This isn’t an issue of avoiding a legal issue. This is an issue of avoiding political problems for the woman who has at least a 50% chance to be our next president.
Moreover, the Clintons should look at all of their individual contributions to see if there are any gifts they should give back.
Lets me be clear about it: If Hillary is going to go from scandal to scandal – email servers to donations and who knows what’s next – she’s surely not going to be as successful as she can be.
What’s most important to do right now is to cut out the foreign money and for Hillary to articulate a positive message about how to change America. She hasn’t done it yet even though it has been promised.
Unless she develops a clear and coherent rationale to revitalize the economy and move the nation forward, Hillary will be hurt more by these scandals than she needs to be.
Get the recap of top opinion commentary and original content throughout the week.