It could have all gone so differently for Hillary Clinton, had she just been upfront and honest.
A pneumonia diagnosis is not by itself disqualification for the job of president, but concealing the truth about it is a foolish move for a candidate who is already viewed as untrustworthy by a majority of American voters.
Yet here we are.
Clinton is now taking a few days off the campaign trail while video of her struggling to stand, before being dragged into a van, is looped on cable news networks.
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The optics are horrible and the questions are perfectly understandable, in a country where the health of presidential candidates is taken so very seriously.
It’s easy to see why the Clinton camp was gun shy about proactively disclosing any health issues. For months, conspiracy theories about her health have run wild on the internet and in the conservative press.
Fox News has gleefully aired unsubstantiated segment after segment, questioning whether Clinton suffers from seizures. The spokesperson for her Republican rival Donald Trump has claimed Clinton suffers from dysphasia.
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani actually told viewers of Fox News Sunday to “go online and put down ‘Hillary Clinton illness,’ take a look at the videos for
yourself.”
YouTube is crawling in mash-up videos that make it look like Clinton can barely stand on her own two feet on any given day.
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The theory that something is seriously wrong with Clinton was already out there.
Now, it’s not going away. In fact, it just got a whole lot worse.
Clinton’s team had the chance to handle it so differently, when their candidate developed a persistent hacking cough over the labour day weekend.
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The cough was so bad that Clinton had to pause for several minutes during a campaign rally on the holiday Monday. She grasped for a glass of water, chugged it back and started coughing again. Then out came the throat lozenges, thrust at her by aides standing just off to the side.
The campaign explained it was Clinton’s seasonal allergies.
Clinton fired off a raspy joke to the crowd, telling supporters “every time I think about Trump I get allergic!” Then she started coughing again.
As the week wore on, that awful cough continued. It interrupted a press conference on board the Clinton campaign plane, forcing the candidate to retreat to her private
cabin until she could catch her breath.
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The cough was out there and well publicized by the time Clinton’s own doctor diagnosed her with pneumonia on Friday.
By then, there was nothing stopping the candidate, or her staff, from voluntarily telling the press that awful cough was something much worse than allergies.
At that point, Clinton could have easily justified taking a few days rest if she felt she needed them.
If she pressed on, as her tireless schedule suggests she would have, at least there would have been an easy explanation for what happened on Sunday.
That awful video (in which you can actually see Clinton’s feet being dragged on the ground) would have elicited a sympathetic response, instead of the collective “Yikes!” that will undoubtedly gnaw at voters’ minds.
It’s too late now.
Clinton has long insisted that her health is not an issue in this election year, but after Sunday that’s no longer the case.
She will be expected to provide more detail about her medical history then perhaps she ever wanted to, and from now on every cough, stumble or slip will be covered with
overwhelming scrutiny. Her campaign said Monday it would release more medical records this week.
Yet in fairness, both Clinton and Trump deserve the same level of attention when it comes to their well-being.
Lost in this unusual election is the fact that the choice between 70-year-old Donald Trump and 68-year-old Clinton is a choice between the oldest,and second oldest
president ever elected to sit in the Oval Office.
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