Could Emails Decide The 2016 Election?
Hillary Clinton’s email history is being put on blast. Even as I speak, I’m receiving email letters from local representatives dying to receive my vote in November. With Donald Trump receiving pejorative reviews and more campaigns being announced weekly, it stands to reason whether our entire election will be built on the premise of emails — received or read.
What’s Hurting Hillary?
The Wall Street Journal reported how many of Hillary Clinton’s emails didn’t amount to much more than image management, many times discussing (innocently) foreign policy and even who’d go handle the journalist imprisonment overseas. Okay, so she’d prefer discussing political matters in her email account instead of phoning ex-presidents and noteworthy individuals she supports. Seems relatively harmless on the surface, but realistically, the Freedom of Information Act allows for full disclosure of political conversations — some which maybe society didn’t want or need to know — because it’s on a need to know basis. It’s the stuff nobody cares about that’s hurting her chances to present ideas people do, in fact, care about.
Openly admitting to her confidants when press coverage angered her through emails, along with somewhat snide commentary about campaign contributions, shed an entirely different light on how Clinton — who has a legitimate shot at becoming our country’s first female president — seems to struggle with media bashing at her expense. Since nobody else is having their emails “put on blast,” many could claim her private emails being made public is someone’s PR stunt.
What’s Hurting Us?
Everyone hates spam, so when you start receiving campaign details or support requests in your Yahoo inbox, it’s simply time to start reporting them. An intriguing infographic by Invesp dictates that 46 percent of email users see fewer than five promo-style emails per day, yet that figure will double come election year for sure. So, how are Dems and Reps getting your email address? Well, you probably opted into something that got sold to some large data company, who then sold that information to some other entity owned by campaigners like Donald Trump or local representatives.
Perception is 9/10ths of the truth, so reading news and tabloid articles surrounding emails and how Hillary ate rhubarb pie yesterday tends to throw doubt into voters minds. And in election nomenclature, it only takes one second of doubt to keep us from voting for whomever we wanted to before we hit the voter booth. Emails are pretty useless, anyway, since social media and text messages are much quicker, so when candidates start sending mass texts, it’s time to worry. Every time we receive campaign spam, a postman cries; therefore, the thing hurting us the most involves the lack of traditional means of viewing candidates.
Until such a time that Hillary is deemed unfit for candidacy or emails start meaning something again, don’t let emails hurt your choice of favorite candidate, even if that means you turn a blind eye to Clinton’s 1,900 freshly released emails forever. It’s a massive public relations nightmare that essentially means everything to the wrong people — none who will sleep on Pennsylvania Ave anytime soon.
[Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images News]
