I've noted several negative reactions toward Clinton based on prior leaks from people who had simply inferred wrong-doing on the basis that the most notable leaks tend to reveal duplicity. This handful of people whom I have observed felt it unnecessary to actually delve into the documents before passing judgment.

Anecdotal, but I'm convinced I'm not the only person with this experience.

You're missing the forest for the trees.

Did Clinton take money (either for herself or for her campaign or for her foundation, it doesn't matter which) from businesses that are canonical symbols of Wall Street money and power? Then she's tainted in the eyes of everybody that is against corporate influence on politics. The contents of the speech isn't particularly important, because it is the influence of money that matters.

Stop looking for traditional political "scandals", and start noticing the anti-corporate-power, anti-globalism revolt that is causing a lot of people to vote "anybody but the usual bribed politicians".

It is clear she took money from many people because they hired her to give a speech. This isn't really in debate. The core question is whether the money will influence her policies. Giving a speech doesn't mean you're bribed or influenced by default. The content of the speech is very important, so it's good we are seeing what was said.

> Giving a speech doesn't mean you're ... influenced by default.

No, but taking a large amount of money does. Even if you believe you aren't taking money for a "bribe" and maintain some level of independence in the actual content of your speech, there is a significant unconscious bias. If you want to get that kind of job again, you might not be as critical of the people paying you.

> The core question is whether the money will influence her policies.

Approach the question from the other side. No for-profit business is going to give large sums of money out without some expectation of a return on that investment. Someone is betting that they will be able to get more money having the ear of a politician than their other investment opportunities.

The anti-globalism revolt, for better or worse, has definitely been noticed by great many people here in the UK in the wake of the unfortunate referendum result in June!

Regarding corporate influence in politics, I'm a combination of too cynical, too ill-informed and too jaded to offer you any worthwhile thoughts on the matter, and therefore fear I will be wasting your time! It seems to me that entities who generate immense wealth have and will always wield influence in society and the mechanism by which it is brought into order (i.e. politics).

Human politics require the support of the governed. Democracies make this even more relevant, but it's always been true; no leadership can long survive being loathed by its people, even if particularly skillful ones have at times managed to stretch that time out. As a result, there is always a bit of stage play element to politics in which the politically active actors play to what they imagine the common audience will think, with varying levels of success depending on how well the people who are putting on the play manage to guess how the public will see the news, despite the fact that they are all almost by definition profoundly disconnected from the public.

Is anyone here really willing to stand up and say, "Yes, I was shocked by this recent news of Trump's comments?" Powerful men have always had access to pretty much whatever women they want. That's not unique to politics, it's not unique to our culture, it's not unique to the 20th or 21st century, it's literally the whole of human experience. (And beyond; it's true of all the primates, and quite a bit of mammalia.) The media frenzy isn't actual outrage... heck, the ringleaders of the outrage probably have personal direct experience that that is the case, and have probably at one moment of indiscretion or another said the same things themselves. But a show is put on, because it might sway the people.

Is there anyone here who is shocked, shocked by the idea that politicians have "a public and a private position", one of the leaked phrases from the putative transcripts? There may be some people out in the masses of voters who will be shocked by this, but by the same token that they would be shocked by this idea, they'll probably never hear about that quote either, so it's not much of an attack.

If you're being consistent, you really ought to admit that neither of these things is very interesting, and that there's not much about either of these thing that will change anybody's mind. The true believers on the relevant side will confirmation-bias their way through whichever of these stories tickles them, but it's very unlikely to sway much either way.

The most dangerous thing the Wikileaks story is merely that it might puncture the public persona of Clinton. The only remotely interesting email that I've seen pop up is this one: https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/927 which goes a long way towards explaining why those speeches have not been released. There's nothing in there that ought to surprise an even remotely careful observer... but there are things in there that puncture the public persona of Clinton. Imagine Clinton reading the excerpt about being out-of-touch with the middle class this weekend. Of course she's out of touch with the middle class. The entirity of Washington DC's political class, Democrat and Republican, and of course Donald Trump are out of touch with the middle class. It can't really be any other way; there's no scenario where the leadership of the sole superpower of the world is living a middle-class life, the idea they can or should is basically absurd. But it's not quotes the campaign wants floating around for the voting masses to see.

I am equally sure that the Trump campaign would not care to see transcripts of its internal strategy sessions floating about either. The public is not meant to see the sausage being made.

It's not clear to me that the recent Trump news punctures much at all about his persona, what it gives people is a "fake because" to drop support if that's what they wanted: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/138214308881/the-fake-because (first bit, you can skip the rest if you like, having recently read most of Influence it is in there but I can't link that). It's not clear to me that there's very many voters looking for a fake because, but the evidence suggests that there were some politicians that were. There will be hope that will cause a lot of other people to come forward and admit they're concerned about Trump to, but at this point in the campaign I'm not guessing there's going to be a lot of movement here.