Things went from embarrassing to cringeworthy for Hillary Clinton when her speech at a Baptist convention in Kansas City.
Clinton was to be the keynote speaker at the National Baptist Convention USA, touted as the country’s oldest and biggest African-American religious convention. During her speech, Clinton quoted lots of scripture, and spoke about her background as a Methodist since childhood. She even took a moment to land a few hits about Donald Trump.
But while it all seemed great if you were looking at the stage, turning the camera around showed you a very embarrassing scene. The turnout was far less than anyone had anticipated, and empty chairs filled the majority of the room. In order to try to save the optics, the lights were turned off, and even a wall was put up to block the vast swath of emptiness before her speech began.
Workers cutting the room down by a third with lower than expected turnout for #clintonkc speech. pic.twitter.com/L60YFfBpO1
— Frank Morris (@FrankNewsman) September 8, 2016
Convention hall turned out lights in un-occupied part of hall for @HillaryClinton speech, now partitioning it off pic.twitter.com/O5Az8EfiRD
— Brian Abel (@BrianAbelTV) September 8, 2016
This is a regularly occurring problem for the Clinton campaign, however. Low turnout has plagued her wherever she goes. This should not at all be surprising, however. Clinton’s popularity and approval ratings are in the tank, alongside her opponent, Donald Trump. So much so that this race is mostly about who is disliked the least.
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