It is a bright and sunshine filled day in the nation’s capital today, August 9th, 1974. Though this day will begin like any other, it will certainly not end that way. As the day begins at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House, President Richard Nixon is beginning the day the same way he has begun it for six years, with his usual breakfast of cottage cheese and fruit and receiving the Presidential Daily Briefing. He is briefed on all the possible threats to American security that day and then he deviates from his routine by saying goodbye to the White House residence staff one final time before he formally resigns as president of the United States. Downstairs in the White House he gives a formal address to the members of the cabinet and other guests. Once he is finished he boards Marine One, the President’s helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base where he will fly to California and become an ex-President.
In his first speech after assuming office, Gerald Ford declares to the American people “Our long national nightmare is over”.
Well, not quite Mr. President, for today we have multiple national nightmares that are far from over. Even the most casual observer of the 2016 Presidential election knows that this has been the year of scandal. If Donald Trump’s tax returns and controversial comments are not dominating the 24 hour news cycle, then the woeful news of the misdeeds of the Clinton foundation or Hillary Clinton’s private email server which may have illegally contained classified material are being regurgitated all over the cable news outlets.
On the surface it may seem hard to find any connection between Watergate and the scandals that are currently ongoing between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. But in truth there is a connection that should apply to not only Watergate, but to all scandals in general. If you as a candidate or a public official want to survive a scandal, be honest. For example, the reason Nixon’s political career did not survive Watergate is because he was not honest that some members of his re-election campaign broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters. As a result, Nixon would spend the next two years trying to cover-up the scandal from the House and Senate Judiciary Committee until he was forced to resign in 1974.
Mrs. Clinton’s staff should take notice of this important event in history, as this is a clear example of what can happen if you are not honest with the American people. What is worse is that Mrs. Clinton still has a week to go to earn the trust of the American people at the voting booth and with 57% of Americans saying she is not honest and trustworthy, therein lies a massive problem. There is no easy way to fix this problem, but one way to go about it is to follow Ronald Reagan’s example following the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987. In that year, he made a televised speech saying that he was wrong in his assertion that his administration did not trade arms for hostages with Iran. While this strategy does not work with everyone, my advice to Hillary is simple: what could it hurt?
