AFP, Washington/Barberton: Hillary Clinton hits the campaign trail once again yesterday after trying to put aside a badly handled health scare that rattled her bid for the US presidency.
The Democratic candidate Hillary had events planned in North Carolina and Washington as she resumed campaigning after a three day break prompted by a bout of pneumonia.
Clinton, 68, fell ill during a 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York on Sunday and was forced to leave. She was seen stumbling limp-legged into her vehicle.
It took several hours for her personal physician to disclose she had been diagnosed with pneumonia two days earlier, drawing criticism of her campaign’s lack of transparency.
On Wednesday, Clinton looked to head off further questions about her health, releasing new medical records that purported to show she is fit to serve as president and is recovering from mild pneumonia.
The disclosure came as her Republican rival Donald Trump, 70, released health data of his own during the taping of a nationally televised medical chat show set to air Thursday.
Both candidates, among the oldest ever to run for the White House, were under intense pressure to share more medical information after Clinton fell ill.
Recent opinion polls have shown the gap between them narrowing with less than two months to go before Election Day, and the presidential hopefuls disclosed fresh information in a bid to score points with undecided voters.
In a detailed, two-page “summary update” on Clinton’s health, her personal physician Lisa Bardack wrote that the candidate was bouncing back after a diagnosis of “mild, non-contagious” pneumonia.
She “is recovering well with antibiotics and rest” after being laid low over the weekend, when she suffered from fatigue and a low-grade fever, although her vital signs remained normal, Bardack said.
The nominee “continues to remain healthy and fit to serve as president of the United States,” she wrote, noting she is in “excellent mental condition.”
Clinton spent Wednesday at home in Chappaqua, New York for a third straight day.
News of Trump’s appearance on “The Dr. Oz Show”—though it appeared to reveal little detail—had earlier flooded the US airwaves on Wednesday. This raised pressure on Clinton to share more health data before returning to the trail.
So far Trump had released only four, gushing paragraphs on his health, written by his doctor Harold Bornstein in December 2015.
Following the revelation of Clinton’s pneumonia, Trump vowed soon to release specific numbers from a recent check-up with Bornstein.
Meanwhile, for some voters, Democrat Hillary Clinton in November is the clear choice for the White House—after all, she certainly has more political experience than Republican rival Donald Trump.
But a trip through the American Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania and Ohio quickly reveals that for others, such logic doesn’t hold much sway.
“Like anyone else, I have my misgivings about Trump,” admits Alex Morton, a 67-year-old real estate attorney who voted twice for Democratic president Bill Clinton.
So, isn’t Hillary the natural choice? No, says Morton. As it turns out, family values matter.
“If she had been an honest woman, she probably would have left him when she found out that he was a philanderer,” Morton said.
“I would have had more respect for her if she had left her husband, but she didn’t, so she’s basically a completely dishonest person.”
In Barberton, a small town not far from Akron in Ohio, one of the key battleground states in the November 8 battle for the White House, there are certainly some Democrats.
Pamela Mignano, who is 61, unemployed and on disability, came with her partner Alan Buckley to the town’s Labor Day parade in early September.
“Mr. Trump sucks, just like his hair,” Mignano said. “Out of the two evils, she’s the least.”
“Hillary pretty much ran the country when Bill was in office, because he was too busy out with his cigars and his whores,” she added.
Buckley, a 66-year-old artist who carries a gun, interrupts her to say, “I don’t care for either one.”
Mignano replies: “Me neither. We’re in trouble either way.”
This rejection of both candidates shines through in opinion polls, which show that a majority of Americans have a negative view of both Clinton and Trump, and in the struggling Rust Belt, where many have fallen on hard times. In southern Ohio, which is more rural and conservative, many Republicans shrug when asked what they think of their billionaire White House hopeful.
“I wish he was a little more couth. If my husband did that, I’d be whacking on him,” Tracy Pierson, a 61-year-old cook at a golf course, said of Trump’s brash campaign style.
“We have nothing to lose to go all in a different direction,” she however added.

Gloomy mood
In this part of Ohio, the population more or less looks the same: Everyone is white, lawns are immaculately maintained, the Stars and Stripes adorns most homes, and sport-utility vehicles or pickup trucks are the norm, parked on gravel driveways.
Some Trump signs are on lawns—never any Clinton signs here.
Don Krepps, a retired construction worker who lives alone with his dog, is one who is making his support for Trump known.
Krepps says he has always considered himself a Democrat but now considers himself an independent. He has never voted in a presidential election, though he says he liked Ronald Reagan, the Republican president in the 1980s. But this year, he will head to the polls.
“Just because of Hillary—that’s why I’ve decided to vote for Donald, because I just don’t want Hillary to get in,” he told AFP.
At his house, Fox News—the network of choice for many conservatives—blares in the background.
Why is he changing sides this year?
Too much crime, too many immigrants who come to the US and “kill innocent people,” he says.