On Friday's PBS NewsHour, during a discussion of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's sagging poll numbers, host Judy Woodruff seemed unfazed by Clinton's incendiary claim that Republicans have similar views toward women as terrorists as she cited the hyperbolic charge as evidence that her campaign may be bouncing back.
Woodruff's suggestion came after liberal columnist and PBS regular Mark Shields warned that it is "a real problem" and "a killer" for a Democratic candidate to have poll numbers as weak as Clinton's when it comes to whether voters view her as someone who "cares about people and the needs of someone like you."
After recounting that Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had scored highly on this measure before their electoral victories, Shields fretted over her numbers:
She, in this latest Quinnipiac poll, national poll yesterday ... Hillary Clinton ... they asked, "Who cares about people and the needs of someone like you?" And she was 46 percent agree, 51 percent disagree. I mean, that is a killer. Joe Biden has a far more positive rating, as does Bernie Sanders.
I mean, Hillary Clinton, the first woman candidate and a Democrat who's been, you know, Children's Defense Fund and health care and all the rest of it, that's a real problem. That's -- I don't care how many endorsements you got, how many superdelegates you got -- that's, that becomes a real problem.
But Woodruff mused over the possibility that things are getting better for the Democratic frontrunner as she turned to allegedly right-leaning PBS regular David Brooks and wondered "how vulnerable is she really?" and seemed to give Clinton credit for "taking responsibility for" her inappropriate use of a personal email server as Secretary of State. Woodruff:
Well, it is her perceived weakness that is -- as you said, Mark -- it has generated all this talk around Biden, and the consideration presumably by Biden. But, David, how vulnerable is she really? I mean, she's, she's out this week, she's taking responsibility for the decision she made on the personal email server.
The PBS host added
She's talking about how she's -- she's talking a little bit tougher on the campaign trail -- comparing how Republicans view women with how terrorists view women. Is she -- is she turning this around? I mean, how do you see her vulnerability right now?
