The LA Times reports today on what millennials know about Hillary Clinton. Answer: they know her as a senator and secretary of state, but have no recollection of the Clinton scandals of the 90s:
The youngest eligible voters of 2016 were toddlers when America’s most prominent political power couple left the White House, and what Americans know about Clinton is increasingly defined by what stage of her career she was in when they first tuned in.
….For some who lived through the battles of Clinton’s first years on the national stage, the culture wars and personal controversies of the 1990s are integral to understanding who she is….Young people, though, are more likely to know of then-White House intern Lewinsky as a vague childhood memory and pop-culture fixture — refracted through Beyonce lyrics, “Saturday Night Live” skits and Lewinsky’s Vanity Fair cover last year — rather than a trust-shattering national scandal that originated in the Oval Office.
This strikes me as both a challenge and an opportunity for Republicans. The challenge, obviously, is that young voters have a pretty positive view of Hillary, unburdened by blue dresses and impeachment proceedings. But there’s also an opportunity.
For people my age, all the stuff from the 90s was litigated long ago and our minds made up. Either we think it was all calculated hogwash and continue to support Hillary, or we think it was all God’s own truth and consider her a lying, scheming hustler. Nothing is likely to change our minds at this point. But younger voters? It’s entirely possible that if you run ads about Whitewater or Travelgate or whatnot, it would come as something of a surprise. And it might change some minds.
We’ll probably find out before too much longer. With hundreds of millions of dollars of super PAC money sloshing around out there, someone is bound to give it a try and see if it has any effect. I’m sure we’re all looking forward to this, aren’t we?
