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Matt Vespa TownhallIt is the political story that just won’t go away for Hillary Rodham Clinton: Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has offered specific positions on a variety of issues while campaigning. But when Gallup recently asked Americans to say what they recall reading or hearing about her, one word -- "email" -- drowned out everything else.In the verbatim responses from about 750 U.S. adults familiar enough with Clinton to offer an opinion of her, the word "email" came up 329 times, phrased variously as "email," "emails," "email scandal," "email scandals," "that email thing," "email stuff" and "private emails." Relatedly, there were 83 mentions of "server." All of these refer to the controversy involving Clinton's use of private email servers to conduct government business while she was secretary of state.By contrast, there were few mentions of the substantive themes Clinton has talked about on the campaign trail. For example, "economy" appeared on the list only four times, the same number as for "the middle class." "Gun control" appeared seven times, with even fewer mentions of "college" and "capital gains tax." Even the catchall descriptions "policy" or "policies" were mentioned just nine times.The data suggest that Clinton has not been able to control the messaging about her and her candidacy, given that the email controversy is the information about her that has been most likely to filter through to the average American.
