{"id":48852,"date":"2016-09-12T16:48:43","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T20:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=48852"},"modified":"2016-09-12T16:55:17","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T20:55:17","slug":"has-a-doppelganger-entered-the-2016-campaign-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=48852","title":{"rendered":"Has a doppelg\u00e4nger entered the 2016 campaign season?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Conspiracy Theorists Believe Hillary Clinton Uses A Body Double<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

“Hillary’s index finder is longer than her ring finger. This is obviously not her,” one skeptic wrote while comparing pictures of Hillary Clinton and her supposed double<\/h2>\n

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\"NEW<\/a>

NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 11: Democratic presidental nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends the September 11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum on September 11, 2016 in New York City. Hillary Clinton left a September 11 Commemoration Ceremony early after feeling overheated and went to her daughter’s house to rest. (Photo by Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Hillary Clinton at the 9\/11 event in New York City on Sunday.<\/span>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/span>Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
By <\/span>Brian Patrick Byrne<\/a> and <\/span>Jacob Steinblatt<\/a><\/div>\n
Sep 12, 2016 at 10:23 AM ET<\/div>\n
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Hillary Clinton felt unwell and left a 9\/11 memorial event early on Sunday morning. But then, a few hours later, the Democratic nominee\u00a0appeared to be in high spirits<\/a>\u00a0as she left her daughter\u2019s apartment in New York City. What explains the shift? Clinton either rested for a bit and then felt better, or \u2014 if you\u00a0ask thousands of conspiracy-minded Twitter users \u2014 it\u2019s because she uses a body double.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s alleged health problems have long been an attack point for her political opponents, but they\u00a0took a turn into the mainstream this weekend.\u00a0Video footage shared widely on social media<\/a> showed Clinton stumbling as she walked toward a\u00a0parked black minivan at One World Trade Center in Manhattan, according to reporters at the scene<\/a>.\u00a0Clinton\u2019s campaign team initially said she had\u00a0\u201coverheated,\u201d but\u00a0later confirmed she was recently diagnosed with pneumonia.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, called it a classic case<\/a> of \u201cwalking pneumonia,\u201d and said the candidate is taking antibiotics and \u201crecovering nicely.\u201d But that hasn\u2019t stopped the wild theorizing.<\/p>\n

Shortly before noon, Clinton, 68,\u00a0waved to cameras as she left Chelsea\u2019s apartment, dressed in the same pantsuit and sunglasses she had been wearing at the commemoration. That\u2019s when thousands of\u00a0skeptics began speculating that the woman leaving was in fact a body double, and that the real-life Hillary Clinton was in fact elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Vocativ discovered around 15,000 tweets using the hashtags #hillarysdouble, #hillarysbodydouble, and the words \u201cHillary\u201d and \u201cbody double\u201d between Sunday and Monday. Doubters tried to justify their belief that the Hillary who left her daughter\u2019s\u00a0apartment was a fake for several increasingly far-fetched reasons. \u201cNot a Secret Service agent in sight. That\u2019s why people are saying this is Hillary\u2019s doppelg\u00e4nger,\u201d one user tweeted<\/a>. Another claimed the\u00a0Clinton photographed outside Chelsea\u2019s apartment\u00a0looked noticeably thinner<\/a> than\u00a0the \u201creal\u201d Clinton.\u00a0One user, who offered a side-by-side comparison of Clinton and her apparent impersonator, suggested<\/a>: \u201cHillary\u2019s index finder is longer than her ring finger. This is obviously not her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost 300 others even named who they believed to be\u00a0Clinton\u2019s body double: Teresa Barnwell, a professional Hillary Clinton impersonator<\/a>\u00a0who actually met Clinton at a promotional event for her book, \u201cIt Takes A Village,\u201d in California in 1996. On her website, Barnwell explained that when she met Clinton, the former first lady\u00a0said: \u201cOh, you\u2019re the one who can stand in for me and do the bad stuff I don\u2019t want to do!\u201d<\/p>\n

The stumble on Sunday revived scrutiny of Clinton and her health. Some users compared the Democratic candidate to another presidential pneumonia sufferer: William Henry Harrison, who was president for 32 days when he died from illness (which, it\u2019s worth noting, occurred in 1841). Franklin D. Roosevelt, others pointed out, was a chain smoker who had coronary heart disease. Ronald Reagan likely had Alzheimer\u2019s in his final days in office. Vocativ discovered plenty of\u00a0users defending Clinton<\/a>\u00a0who\u00a0pointed out that George W. Bush once choked on a pretzel<\/a>, and George H.W. Bush vomited and then\u00a0fainted at a banquet dinner<\/a> in\u00a0Japan.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/twitter.com\/eddie_famous\/status\/775134582119264256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p>\n

http:\/\/twitter.com\/RepStevenSmith\/status\/775170427723415552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p>\n

http:\/\/twitter.com\/becerra_erika\/status\/775145711612473344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p>\n

http:\/\/twitter.com\/PolitiShox\/status\/775234542311538688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p>\n

A Twitter account associated with Barnwell initially stoked the fires of the body double conspiracy, tweeting an undated picture of the actress\u00a0across the street\u00a0from Chelsea\u2019s apartment<\/a>. Hours later, the\u00a0account tried to put an end to the conspiracy, tweeting: \u201cOK people, calm down. I was in LA today, all day. Was just messin\u2019 with your crazy conspiracy minded little heads. Go to bed.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, even that wasn\u2019t enough for some skeptics. \u201cNice to know that they got you threatened too,\u201d one user replied<\/a>\u00a0to Barnwell\u2019s tweet. \u201cDon\u2019t worry, if you don\u2019t say anything they won\u2019t have to kill you :).\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nhttp:\/\/www.vocativ.com\/358304\/conspiracy-theorists-believe-hillary-clinton-uses-a-body-double\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conspiracy Theorists Believe Hillary Clinton Uses A Body Double “Hillary’s index finder is longer than her ring finger. This is obviously not her,” one skeptic wrote while comparing pictures of Hillary Clinton and her supposed double<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}