• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, May 31, 2016

The two leading contenders for president of the United States are among the most disliked candidates in recent memory, each with a set of pernicious issues that will plague the general election.

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are having a difficult time changing the injurious opinions a majority of Americans have of them.

Hillary Clinton currently sports a 54.7% unfavorable rating, which would be a recent record low — if not for Donald Trump’s 57.7%, as according to The Huffington Post.

Hillary Clinton has faced her first big test in this period of the race with the release of the State Department Inspector General’s report. Her response to difficult realizations that she was not authorized nor had asked for permission to use a private server for her work-related emails, has been curt, to say the least.

While the email issue is not of material importance to how effective Clinton would be as president, the lack of straightforwardness in her answers is troubling.

When asked as to why she didn’t cooperate with State Department officials on the email report on MSNBC, Clinton evoked her 11-hour testimony in front of the Benghazi committee, a separate issue.

Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, said of the Clinton email scandal on “Face the Nation”: “The arc of revelations, sort of dissembling, spinning in a very professional way and not really convincing anyway. It confirms everything we’ve been talking about Hillary Clinton.”

While Clinton struggles to assuage critics, Donald Trump seems to blindly encourage them.

Continued from Leibovich’s discussion of Clinton above: “On the other hand, the Clinton people would say … with some justification, that there’s a complete double standard [in] honesty between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. If you were to look week to week at what Donald Trump says … just the volume of stuff that comes out of his mouth.”

From blatantly lying in a presidential debate to completely contradicting himself on any number of critical issues, Donald Trump takes the meaning of “I don’t lie. I’m too truthful,” to a whole new level. Trump’s truth talk, while it seems to have convinced many, will likely fall flat with a host of educated centrists, Independent and minority voters.

Problematic for Clinton, many don’t see her as a more honest alternative. She could change that around, however; confronting the email scandal in a candid manner would be a first step.