Contempt for Clinton tops passion for Trump in Council Bluffs
Council Bluffs, Ia. — The votes Donald Trump ultimately wins in this western Iowa city may say less about the support he enjoys and more about the loathing voters here appear to have for Hillary Clinton.
At a rally for the Republican presidential nominee in Council Bluffs and at a couple diners in town on Wednesday, voters repeatedly called the race a choice between two poor options, but consistently called Trump the better of them.
“It’s borderline lesser-of-two-evils for me, but I support Trump,” Pottawattamie County Assessor Bill Kealy said while looking over the menu at Dixie Quicks, a hip downtown diner with an “Obama 2012” sticker on the wall. “He’s at least honest. He might be a little bombastic, but he’s not a politician.”
Trump clearly recognizes antipathy for Clinton as a rhetorical winner. Most of his 45-minute speech at the Mid-America Center here Wednesday was an attack on the Democratic presidential rival, variously deriding her as corrupt, incompetent, condescending and controlled by “special interests.”
“She disgraced the Office of Secretary of State by putting it up for sale, and if she ever got the chance she would put the Oval Office up for sale, too,” Trump said.
The rally drew perhaps a thousand supporters, split between Iowans and Nebraskans, who cheered Trump and jeered Clinton in equal measure.
Council Bluffs, a small city of about 62,000 on Iowa’s western border, is emblematic of the working-class communities across Iowa and the industrial Midwest where Trump has an opportunity to tap existing Republican electoral advantages and also win over voters who may have voted Democrat as recently as four years ago.
The city itself leans Democratic, but its demography — 95 percent white, with relatively low educational attainment and median incomes — matches polling demographics where Trump sees advantages. The county around it and the rural expanses beyond, meanwhile, are heavily Republican. Council Bluffs also lies just across the Missouri River from Omaha, Neb., where a single electoral vote may be in play under Nebraska’s rules for apportioning electoral votes by congressional district.
Clinton visited Omaha last month, underscoring the area’s competitiveness.
The Clinton campaign countered Trump’s Council Bluffs visit with an appearance in the city by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a regional union leader and the Pottawattamie County Democratic Party chairwoman.
“While Hillary Clinton has spent her entire career fighting for women and children, Donald Trump has spent his entire career fighting for himself,” Miller and the others said in a joint statement. “Only Hillary Clinton can build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, and work with our allies to keep us safe. Donald Trump, on the other hand, proved once again that he doesn’t have the qualifications or the temperament to be our president or commander in chief.”
At Duncan’s Café, a diner tucked inside an office building on Main Street, several diners said they’d ruled out support for Clinton, leaving Trump as their only option.
Kathleen Eckerman, a retired nursing assistant who twice voted for President Barack Obama, described living in an apartment where she’s surrounded by young families facing financial hardship and no obvious prospects for improvement.
After backing U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic caucuses, Eckerman said she’s voting for Trump with the hope that his tough talk on trade and promises about restoring American manufacturing will yield results for people like her neighbors.
Eckerman, 72, spoke wistfully of the 1960s, when she said, “we didn’t worry about nothing, everything turned to gold.” When Trump says he’ll “make America great again,” that’s what he’s talking about, she said.
“He’s shooting from the hip, and he should probably curtail that and think through things a little more,” she said. “But I think now may be the time and a place to talk like he is — maybe even to world leaders.”
All that said, Eckerman’s support for Trump was equally predicated on a plainly gender-based dislike and distrust of Clinton.
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Eckerman criticized Clinton for making a distasteful face during Monday’s debate, calling it disrespectful and suggesting similar displays could damage relations with other leaders. She faulted Clinton for not “doing something” about husband Bill Clinton’s infidelity while he was president. She dismissed Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state as mere resume-building.
“I just don’t feel like she has good enough character to be president,” Eckerman said over her bowl of chili at Duncan’s. “I’ve heard from a number of women that don’t feel like Hillary is enough of a woman to be president.”
At another table, Mark Acosta echoed both Eckerman’s economic concerns and her distaste for Clinton.
The 59-year-old, a retired union laborer , too, is backing Trump despite reservations.
“She’s already had her chance and she ain’t done nothing but a lot of lying,” Acosta said. “Maybe it’s time for a new liar, I don’t know.”
Full Video: Donald Trump speaks at rally in Council Bluffs
Acosta said he has typically supported Republican candidates but today finds himself disillusioned with both parties. Above all, he wants to see a leader who will spur job creation and raise wages.
“I think (Trump is) a pretty ruthless businessman, so maybe he can help make our economy better,” Acosta said. “But I worry about his temperament, because it’s kind of Donald’s way or no way — you know, ‘you’re fired!’ ”
To underscore his economic concerns, Acosta described his wife’s job at the local ConAgra food processing facility: She’s been there for 28 years but still makes less than $15 an hour. She walks with difficulty now after so many years in a stationary job on a hard concrete factory floor. Acosta said he’s see the same among workers in their 40s as they shuffle out of the plant at shift change.
“We might as well give him a shot,” Acosta said of Trump. “He can’t do any worse than Obama or Bush.”
Those same arguments — about Clinton’s untrustworthiness, about Trump’s outsider appeal and about America’s lost greatness — could be heard at the candidate’s rally, distilled and fortified.
Beyond his broadside against Clinton, Trump made that case that he’s fighting for workers who have seen their wages decrease and economic stability erode.
“They had one job, now they’re working two jobs, they’re working much harder, they’re making much less money,” Trump said.
In the crowd, antipathy for Clinton predominated. One man’s T-shirt read: “Hillary for Prison." Another’s depicted the Democratic nominee as the Joker villain from "Batman" movies.
“I just don’t like Hillary. I’ve never liked Hillary. She’s the most evil, corrupt woman on the face of the earth,” Trump supporter Robert Elders said, noting Benghazi, the email controversy and a list of “–gate” scandals as evidence. “Everything she’s ever been involved in is shady.”
Elders, a contractor in bib overalls from Omaha, acknowledged that Trump isn’t as conservative as the ideal GOP candidate might be, but said his appeal transcends ideology.
“It’s almost an emotional issue for me, it really is,” he said. “I just want this country to be back to what it was when I was a child, when people respected us.”