Will E. Jean Carroll Do Political Ads for Biden if Trump is on the Ballot. If not, Her Case Might Still be Used

American Eclectic posts articles twice a month, on the 1st and 15th. This is the second year of publication; previously published articles can be found on my site.

September 1, 2023

In 2000 Hillary Clinton was running for a United States Senate seat in New York state.  On the evening of September 13^th of that year, she debated Representative Rick Lazlo, who was her Republican challenger.  Some of the polls had Lazlo ahead but some of the polls were seeing this as a tight until the end.  On that night, however, toward the end of the debate, Lazlo crossed the floor and walked up to Clinton and wanted her to sign a pledge on campaign finance.  Watching this exchange, it can seem awkward as Clinton seemed to push his hand away.  Basically, at that moment any chance that Lazlo had of winning a Senate seat went out the window.  Jon Stewart who was doing The Daily Show at that time, called the encounter “Rodham ‘n Creep.”  Clinton went on to win the Senate seat 55.3 percent to 43 percent—a significant margin of difference.  It took a while for the replay of that incident during the debate to sink into New York voters, particularly as it was replayed a number of times—but Lazlo’s actions, seen as confrontational particularly by a number of women voters, ended his chances of winning.  In the lead-up to the first Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton heading toward the 2016 election, Lazlo had some advice for Trump, “My advice? Stay at the podium!” Trump did not take Lazlo’s advice.

In the 2022 Senate race in Georgia between Herchel Walker and Senator Raphael Warnock, the Republican Accountability PAC, which grew out of Republicans opposed to Donald Trump and candidates, in general, they saw unfit to hold public office, they ran ads addressing problems Walker had with mental illness and violence against his former wife.  In the ads, Walker’s former wife said he put a gun to her head and threatened to use it.  Walker said he was “accountable” regarding violence against his former wife.  A Walker spokesman, however, said Walker was addressing violence or the threats of violence he directed at two other women, one in 2000 and another in 2012, but not addressing his wife—as though which women he violently threatened made a difference.  This, sort of, admission of some violence aimed at women must have been confusing to a number of Georgia voters.  In the end Warnock won with 51.4 percent of the voter to Walker’s 48.6 percent, slightly less than 100,000 votes made the difference. 

Walker freely addressed that he could fly-off-the handle and lose control of himself.  In his memoir, Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder he wrote about waiting for a car to be delivered that was six days behind when it was supposed to be delivered:

I could feel my jaw pulsing and my teeth grinding as I sped down Church Road toward Robert’s house.  I wondered for a moment if my Beretta pistol was still in the glove compartment. 

Walker seemed to have so many problems that violence against several women was only part of his troubles.  For example, Walker had difficulty addressing fatherhood.  As one publication put it:

Walker, [had a] pattern that…suggested—one undisclosed child the first day, two the next, four the day after that, eight the next day, and so forth—has not obtained. The equilibrium has settled at four total Herschel Walker children. Unfortunately for him and his claims to family-related moral authority, though, it appears that each was born to a different woman, and that, as the New York Times puts it, it is “unclear” how involved he has been in the lives of any of them besides Christian, except in the case of the child whose mother sued him.

Walker’s problems only got worse when the Republican candidate who said he would support “pro-life” legislation if elected to the Senate, was confronted with a former girlfriend who said Walker paid for her to have an abortion.  Walker called the accusation “a flat out lie.”  The woman presented a copy of a $700 check, the abortion center’s receipt, and Walker even took the time to send her a signed “Get Well” card.  A second woman then came forward and said much the same thing as the first woman, however, she added that she could not go through with the abortion the first time she went to a clinic.  But, the next day, as she stated, “[He] drove me to the clinic the following day and waited for hours in the parking lot until I came out.  I was devastated because I felt like I was pressured into having the abortion.”  

In the Clinton-Lazlo debate there was a clear focus on a specific situation—Lazlo walking across the stage and had an awkward confrontational moment with Clinton.  Walker’s violence toward women was there, and he admitted it, but there was so much more that added to a picture of a disturbed man that, by itself, taking a gun to his former wife, was just one of several troubling issues.  Despite all of Walker’s problems, he lost a close race.

One study looked at Democratic men, Democratic women, Republican men, and Republican women, and concluded, “we find that accusations of sexual harassment influence Democratic women the most and Republican men the least.”  This should not be a big surprise.  This study did, however, point to an interesting way to look at Republican women, “Republican women hold a conflict between their embrace of traditional gender roles and the real threat they face being victims of harassment.”  This issue of a “real threat” might matter regarding E. Jean Carroll, as well as the other women who testified on her behalf in the trial in New York City in May in which a jury found that Donald Trump sexually assaulted Carroll and defamed her.  A jury of six men and three women were shown a video of Trump denying he raped her. Trump himself never appeared in court, but the jury was obviously not persuaded by Trump’s video statement.

The Lazlo-Clinton situation had an impact on female voters in New York state—this distinct moment mattered.  The issue of abortion was addressed in this campaign, but Lazlo might not have been seen as a staunch pro-life candidate.  On a number of issues, Lazlo was seen as a “moderate moderateness” as one article described him.  Clinton certainly was pro-choice.  In this race the issue of abortion may not have carried the weight it did as in the 2022 Georgia Senate race.  In Walker’s case, his violence against women was weighed against his likely support for pro-life positions. Women voters in Georgia were being asked to see Walker as a pivotal vote in the Senate on abortion and they were asked to see that as a reason to vote for Walker and to put aside whatever disgust they might feel about Walker personally.

The issue of abortion, particularly the Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, might have created a different political environment where Republican women might become more receptive to weighing the verdict in the Carroll case and how they look at Donald Trump.  Admittedly, Democrats have pushed legislation to legalize abortion.  In 2021, in the House of Representative, prior to the Dobbs case, Democrats pushed for the Women’s Health and Protection Act.  The bill passed in the House when the Democrats were in the majority, but it went nowhere in the Senate.  In the Senate, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D. CT) introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022.  A filibuster threat prevented that bill from going anywhere.  On the campaign trail, President Biden has pushed the issue of protecting abortion rights, but it is difficult to believe that whatever he has to say will lead to a legal environment where abortion will return to the pre-Roe days, so many voters may become aware that the future for abortion consists of ongoing battles with no clear winner. Abortion rights will stay for the foreseeable future within states. The fight going on in Ohio about how to word a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that will be on the November ballot is an example of battles within a state.

Imagine Carroll in campaign ads, along with some of the eleven witnesses who testified on her behalf.  Two of the witnesses, long-time friends of Carroll testified that soon after the assault by Trump, Carroll called them to say what had happened to her—this was years before Trump had thoughts of running for President.  Two Bergdorf Goodman former employees testified that on Thursday evenings in the timeframe of when Carroll said the assault happened, the sixth floor of the department store was as she described it.  Two witnesses testified to Trump’s behavior against them, one that he sexually assaulted her on a plane in the 1970s and tried to put his hand up her skirt, the other that while interviewing Trump in 2005 about the upcoming one-year anniversary of his marriage to Melanie, he assaulted her and started kissing her.  Even if Carroll or any of the other witnesses are not in any political ads, the transcripts of the trial are public record so an ad with a Hollywood actress or several playing different parts, may have a significant impact on some segment of Republican women voters as well as independent women voters.  Imagine Meryl Steep reading testimony as though she were the reporter interviewing Trump about his upcoming first anniversary, as he proceeded to assault her.  The study I referred to above, did not address women voters who classify themselves as independent.  We might assume that they might be influenced by such ads.

Trump’s behavior toward women, particular the jury finding in this case, may matter, possibly more than in ways that any guilty verdicts in one or more of the four cases against him regarding the 2020 election or Stormy Daniels, may not.  Beginning with the 1984 Presidential election in which Ronald Reagan won re-election over Walter Mondale, more women than men have voted in Presidential elections.  It was understandable why Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro, to be his vice-presidential candidate-the first woman to be on the ticket of one of the two major political parties.  Since then, the gap has continued to widen with more women than men voting.

The Carroll case has been overshadowed by the four cases that have been brought again Trump.  But political ads, which can repeatedly focus voters on Carroll’s trial, the statements made by witnesses during the trial, and the jury finding for Carroll can have an impact.  While voters have an understanding of the trial, I suspect what knowledge they have is cursory at best.  Political ads are often about attempts to educate voters—and in ways that they may go into more depth than what voters gleamed from some television news coverage. Studies are always trying to address whether negative ads boost turnout, or reduce it, or have little or no effect at all. The unusual situation of Carroll’s trial and finding against Trump—bringing a former President to trial on rape and sexual assault and having a jury believe he sexually assaulted Carroll, in many ways places this situation in a category all by itself. This is an incredibly personalized situation—a woman coming forward to confront her abuser. This is not about political decisions made by politicians and how they have impacted people—the usual political ads. A quote from Zainab Salbi, an Iraqi-American writer and co-founder of Women for Women International, an organization focused on providing support for women survivors of wars is appropriate, “It seems to me that violence against women has been tolerated for so long that the world has become numb to it.” How do you ignore this court case and Trump’s sexual assault if he is the Republican Presidential candidate once again. Voters have come to anticipate certain types of political ads in a Presidential race—this is something entirely different. Yes, addressing this trial can matter to the outcome of a Biden-Trump rematch but it can matter to making a judgment about the person that Donald Trump is and not based on statements or foolish tweets he makes to hide behind.

Notes

Nick Baumann and Patrick Caldwell, “Republicans Blew Their Chance to End Hillary Clinton’s Career 15 Years Ago. Have They Learned Their Lesson?” Mother Jones (March 19, 2015); https:// www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/03/hillary-clinton-rick-lazio-2000-senate-sexism/

Brett Gordon, Micael Lovett, Bowen Luo, James Reeder, “How Much Do Campaign Ads Matter?” Kellogg Insight (November 1, 2021): https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/how-much-do-campaign-ads-matter

Ruth Igielnik, “Men and women in the U.S. continue to differ in voter turnout rate, party identification,” Pew Research Center (August 18, 2020); https:// www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/18/men-and-women-in-the-u-s-continue-to-differ-in-voter-turnout-rate-party-identification/

Alex Kasprak, “Was Trump ‘Found Guilty’ of Sexually Assaulting E. Jean Carroll,” Snopes (May 9, 2023): https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/05/09/trump-liable-sexual-abuse/ A good article that points out that this was a civil not a criminal trial so the use of “found guilty” or “convicted” do not apply.

Gustaf Kilander, “GOP candidate Herchel Walker admits domestic violence claims but says the therapy fixed him: ‘Like I broke my leg, I put the cast on.  It healed,’” yahoo!news (December 15, 2021): https:// news.yahoo.com/gop-candidate-herschel-walker-admits-195415970.html

Natalie Masuoka, Christian Grose, and Jane Junn, “Sexual Harassment and Candidate Evaluation: Gender and Partisanship Interact to Affect Voter Responses to Candidates Accused of Harassment,” Political Behavior (December 6, 2021): https:// link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-021-09761-3

Beth Mathis-Lilley, “How Many Secret Children Can Herchel Walker Reveal Before He’s In Real Trouble?” Slate (June 22, 2022): https:// slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/herschel-walker-georgia-secret-family-electability.html

Erica Orden, “11 witnesses testified in Donald Trump’s rape trial.  Here’s what the said,” Politico (May 5, 2023): https:// www.politico.com/news/2023/05/05/trump-rape-trial-witness-tracker-00095179

Susan Rinkunas, “As Herchel Walker’s Abortion Lies Pile Up, Gloria Allred Entered The Chat,” yahoo!news (October 22, 2022): https:// news.yahoo.com/herschel-walkers-abortion-lies-pile-183500504.html

Julie Carr Smyth, “Backers blast approved ballot language for Ohio’s fall abortion amendment as misleading,” AP (August 26, 2023): https://apnews.com/article/ohio-abortion-access-ballot-issue-election-2023-a628e9b323b8544847ace0a0504c5733. I will need to do an article on ballot language—beyond just the issue of abortion. For years I have been aware of this issue and voters never fully realize how important the way a ballot is worded matters.

Nada Tawfik, Pratiksha, Ghildial and Madeline Halpert, “Donald Trump sexually abused E Jean Carroll, jury finds,” BBC News (May 9, 2023): https:// www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-65502076

James Traub, “The Ingratiator,” New York Times (July 30, 2000): https:// www.nytimes.com/2000/07/30/magazine/the-ingratiator.html

Meg Wagner, “EXCLUSIVE: Rick Lazlo who lost 2000 Senate race to Hillar Clinton after debate gaffe, gives Donald Trump tips: ‘Stay at the podium!’” Dail News (September 24, 2016): https:// www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/rick-lazio-trump-debate-advice-stay-podium-article-1.2803498

Herchel Walker with Gary Brozek and Charlene Maxfield, Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder (New York, Howard Books, 2008).