Although Hillary Clinton has again won the over-hyped Gallup title as the "most admired woman" in the United States, her slim margin of victory over Michelle Obama essentially makes her the least popular winner in the entire history of this horribly annoying poll.
In another wipe-out, Donald Trump narrowly lost to Barack Obama. If nothing else, this result is sure to engender a torrent of new "it was rigged!" tweets from the president, in what is traditionally a very slow news week. If it's any consolation, Obama still has a lot of catching up to do to beat Dwight Eisenhower's own record as most admired man in America ever in the history of Gallup polling.
If it is any further consolation to Trump, although "Crooked Hillary" has retained her popularity title for the 16th consecutive year out of 22 total lifetime wins, finding even a couple hundred people to vote for her out of the thousand-odd who were polled was a fraught enterprise. "She managed to win this year because she remains arguably more prominent than other contenders," Gallup contended. "However, retaining that stature may be more challenging in coming years with her political career likely over."
Ouch. Well, it could always have been worse. Gallup could have gone the Vanity Fair route and advised Hillary to take up a new hobby, such as knitting. Although the usual purveyors of manufactured liberal outrage are screaming "sexism" at this harmless snark, I think the people who should be really offended by this hysteria are the knitters of America. Admired males and females alike can be, and historically have been, accomplished knitters. As a crocheter myself, I was even a little jealous that Vanity Fair hadn't recommended my needlework skill-set to this minimally admired person.
If it's any further, further consolation to Trump, Gallup also predicts that as a sitting president, he's bound to beat Obama sooner or later - provided, of course, that he is still the most unpopular President this same time next year. The pollsters predict that Barry's star will soon fade as well, despite that over-hyped interview with Prince Harry Saxe-Coburg (whose great-uncle the Duke of Windsor, by the way, became an enthusiastic knitter after his abdication) was "breaking the Internet" this week. No matter, though. If Obama can brag that he, out of hundreds of millions of other Americans, felt delightfully "serene" as he listened to Trump's bizarre inauguration speech last January, he probably doesn't get too needled when it comes to people admiring him or not.
The other runners-up in this year's popularity contest were a mixed bag, ranging from Pope Francis to Mike Pence to Bernie Sanders to Elizabeth Warren to Benjamin Netanyahoo to Beyonce.
For those of you who care enough to be actually knitting your brows over the poll results, please take heart. Because fully one-quarter of those contacted by Gallup could not name one single person whom they most admire. Another nine percent chose a friend or a family member over any of the usual Big Media Names.
This exhibit of independent thinking from a tiny but "statistically significant" sample of the American populace is what actually gives me a smidgen of hope for the New Year.
5 comments:
I think Hillary would think knitting was beneath her. Yoga is cool, alternative nostril breathing is even cooler, but knitting is so... ordinary. I'm surprised Grandma Hillary hasn't taken it up really, but I suppose she special orders original booties, blankies, and lovies to be specially hand crafted by Dior rather than making them herself. Besides, Queens don't knit do they?
If Hillary didn't keep herself constantly in the media with one form of self-promotion or another, she wouldn't be as disliked as she is. She's earned the contempt. The Hillary Show must go on, but we want it cancelled. Please!
Hillary's self-promotion is matched only by Donald Trump, although he's way beyond her now that he's got his own flag and Presidential coin with his name on it. Obama, on the other hand, practices a different, classier style of self-promotion because his goal is to become filthy rich so he has to be careful not to ruffle feather$.
While Hillary doesn't appear to enjoy any hobbies or crafts, she's very talented at weaving tangled webs (too many to count) and telling tall tales (sniper fire, Benghazi caused by a video). Unfortunately, she always seems to catch herself in them. I can't wait for Mueller to get tangled up in Hillary's/DNC's dossier funding web. After spending a year lying/denying about who funded the dossier, it turns out not only did she/DNC pay for it, but they used a high priced law firm to funnel the payments. Poor, innocent Hillary. Why does everyone keep picking on her?
In regard to Donald Trump, I fear he's going to go down in history as a great American President. (I'll pause to give you a chance to recover). Why? Because he has no fear. Remember when some guy tried to charge the stage? He looked like he was instinctively going to grab the guy himself. And he lacks the fear of failure of Obama who had to cut backroom deals (banksters) and give away the farm (Social Security) before negotiations even started so he could come out looking like a winner without breaking a sweat. Or he never even bothered trying (single payer). He never showed a fighting spirit because he didn't have one. He was too afraid of rocking the boat or getting pushed out by the captains of the ship.
Trump fights for what he wants and he likes getting scrappy about it. That's something many Americans like and respect far more than superior intelligence, civility, or experience, especially when the fighting is for jobs. Trump has unshakeable confidence that he's already a winner so he's comfortable taking big risks. When he loses, he believes he can find a way to get others on board, so he tries and tries again.
Think about it. Trump only had ONE consistent slogan/message, MAGA (unlike both Obama and Hillary who each had dozens of vaguely worded slogans). Trump didn't change his speech patterns for different audiences, like Hillary with her southern twang while swigging beers, and Obama g-dropping when speaking to the 'folks' (non-banksters).
Trump is consistently true to himself - an authentic asshole! He may be an ignorant buffoon, but he's got the big picture in his smart businessman brain about the legacy he wants to leave - jobs and prosperity - and he's never going to give up fighting for that legacy as long as he's President. Truth is, he might already have surpassed Obama in achievements, especially if you leave out the last minute of the last year actions of Obama, like starting to 'phase out' private prisons while massively ramping up immigration detentions, go figure. Trump's already undone that one.
Fair warning to Democrats: Voters just might decide Trump's a lot better than anyone the Democratic Party elites come up with.
I haven't seen any evidence that Trump is fighting for jobs and prosperity. My hope is that people will see the bankruptcy of the idea that businesspeople have all the answers. Trump was handed a fortune made with the help of government which he probably squandered (or could have done better with passive investing). I don't believe he is a billionaire. He's not really even a real estate developer. He's a brand manager.
Will we never escape hearing of the Clintons? I found myself momentarily wondering what is happening with the Clinton Foundation and the current rate for their speechifying -- but just as quickly purged them from my mind.
Unfortunately the GOP can't do such purging as the Clintons whom they love to hate, set the floor for acceptable GOP behavior. "But what about ..."
You go girl!
"FBI Director Comey, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Julian Assange all colluded against me as a woman!"
- Crooked Hillary
It could be that Hillary was voted Most Admired because of all she did for Trump. Maybe his voters were grateful.
From 11/7/16 in Politico's 'They Always Wanted Trump':
"We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates (Trump, Carson, Cruz) so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously."
It worked, Hillary. Trump got billions in free tv coverage and won the nomination and the Presidency. His voters should thank her.
"They also decided to hold fire on Trump during the primary and resist the urge to distribute any of the opposition research the Democrats were scrambling to amass against him."
Which we now know was the Dirty Dossier, so dirty that when they shopped it around, the media wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Only after Obama's FBI and Intelligence Community ran with it did it get media exposure. Good thing Hillary had Obama's help, for whatever good it did. If the Pied Piper strategy is any indication, the Dossier might backfire spectacularly. She's her own worst enemy.
"It was around that time that her team quietly made the last in a series of slogan switches, choosing “Stronger Together” — but only after considering 83 other options. The previous iteration — “Fighting For Us” — disappeared without a trace."
Poor Hillary, after running for President twice, and really all her life, she still couldn't find her voice, her footing, or the right slogan for her - although she did manage to remind people constantly that she ran only to become The First Woman President.
It would be nice to say that no one tried harder to get elected President than Hillary, but that wouldn't be true - she spent the entire month of August hiding from the press and doing fundraisers, probably with Harvey Weinstein who she couldn't keep her hands off from, as if she was massaging him for money. She also could have spent that time in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
The fact is, everyone else knows that you don't get to be President unless you graduate Electoral College. As it turns out, Hillary flunked out and rightly so. That's what happens when you cheat too much and don't learn the lessons.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428
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