http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/287193-clinton-all-of-the-discredited-negativity-comes-out-when-i-runJuly 11, 2016, 09:18 am
Clinton blames political climate for poor approval ratings
By Jesse Byrnes
Getty Images
Hillary Clinton is blaming a negative political environment for her low approval ratings, which have led to worries about the strength of her presidential candidacy.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also blamed her bad numbers on the presidential race, saying the number of voters who think negatively of her tends to increase when she runs for office.
"It's always amusing to me," Clinton told Vox, that when she holds a position such as secretary of State, "I have really high approval ratings."
"And then I seek a job, I run for a job, and all of the discredited negativity comes out again, and all of these arguments and attacks start up. So it seems to be part of the political climate now that is just going to have to be dealt with," Clinton added in the interview.
The former first lady insisted she'd be able to "break through that" and win in November. "And then once I’m doing the job, we’ll be back to people viewing me as the person doing the job instead of the person seeking the job," she said.
"Look, I’m not making any special plea, because it’s just reality," she continued. "But every recent study has shown that if you take all of the media and all of the Republicans and all of the independent expenditures, tens of millions of dollars of negative attacks have been run against me. And that’s just something I’ve learned to live with, and I don’t pay a lot of attention to it anymore."
Clinton and presumptive GOP rival Donald Trump are widely unpopular in polling. A Pew survey released last week found that at least half of supporters for both candidates view their support as more in opposition to the other major party candidate.
The poll also found that less than half of Republicans and Democrats are satisfied with the party's standard-bearers, including 43 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans.
"There’s a lot of behavioral science that if you attack someone endlessly — even if none of what you say is true — the very fact of attacking that person raises doubts and creates a negative perspective," Clinton told Vox. "As someone Exhibit A on that — since it has been a long time that I’ve been in that position — I get that. I get it."
