Meet
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton runs music festivals across
America, and Trump heads up a cancer institute in Virginia.
Their names have always raised some eyebrows, they say, but in an election year, it's getting them a whole lot more attention.
Hillary Clinton, festival organizer
Hillary
Clinton, a fun-loving twenty something from New Orleans, Louisiana, is
quick to point out that she was not named after Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"I am from Louisiana, she was the first lady of Arkansas," Clinton says, referring to when she was born.
Not surprisingly, her Louisiana parents hadn't heard of the other Hillary Clinton at the time.
Her father, Phillip, not Phil, Clinton, confirmed to us that her name is indeed a coincidence.
Shortly
after Hillary Rodham Clinton moved into the White House in 1993,
Hillary's mother wrote to the first lady about her namesake. "How
interesting to learn of another Hillary Clinton!" The first lady wrote
back, "Perhaps we will meet sometime in the future."
Name recognition
It
wouldn't be until 1998, when news of the Lewinsky scandal broke, that
sharing a name with the first lady would become a problem for Hillary
Clinton, a seven-year-old in elementary school at the time.
"I
didn't really understand what the act was that had happened, so the
jokes didn't make sense to me and the attention was not attention I was
looking for, so I actually changed my name for a few months," Clinton
explained to CNN, sitting in the middle of Suwannee Hulaween, a music festival she helped organize over the Halloween weekend in Northern Florida.
Part of her job involves liaising with performing artists and their agents.
"My
emails sometimes get ignored and I have to send multiple follow-ups.
People think I'm part of the campaign or they think it's spam," Clinton
says.
She's not kidding.
"I asked my agent if her name was a joke," one performer from France told CNN at the Suwannee Hulaween festival.
'Facebook, I want my name back'
Having
the name Hillary Clinton on social media isn't always easy. "I get
tagged in so many Hillary Clinton posts," Clinton says. "Positive and
negative memes and photos."
Her
Facebook account has been suspended on multiple occasions, with the
social network giant thinking her name a fake. She sent Facebook
officials her driver's license some years ago but her account was again
subsequently blocked. Today, in fact, she goes by "Hill Clinton."
"Facebook, if you're listening, I want my name back," she says.
'Screwed either way'
Clinton
says that although she won't be voting for Trump as she is "scared of
him," she's torn because she knows sharing a name with a president could
be even more troublesome.
"I'm screwed either way. If Hillary Clinton wins, then it's just going to get worse ... for me," she says.
Dr. Donald Trump, CEO, Inova Schar Cancer Institute
Dr.
Donald Trump has been working in the medical field for more than 40
years. He now runs a cancer institute in Virginia and although he says
he'll be voting for Hillary Clinton next Tuesday, he has courted "The
Donald" for donations for medical research in the past.
Dr.
Trump first became aware of the other Donald Trump in the late 1970s
when the businessman began showing up in the New York tabloids.
The pair have interacted sporadically throughout the years.
Going bald
In
2010, Donald J. Trump picked up the phone to ask Dr. Trump for a favor.
The son of a close friend of his was hoping to get into a clinical
trial at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, where Dr. Trump
was working at the time.
"I'm happy
to say that neither Mr. Trump nor I had any impact on that decision.
That process and the entry of the young man on the clinical trial was
well underway when I received the call," Dr. Trump told CNN during an
interview at the Inova Schar Cancer Institute in Virginia, where he now
serves as CEO and Executive Director.
Never
one to miss an opportunity, Dr. Trump used the contact from Mr. Trump
to tell him about some of the work performed at Roswell Park and
explained to him that they would soon be holding a "Bald for Bucks"
fundraiser.
The Donald politely
declined to part with his famous locks, but sent a video message wishing
Roswell Park well and made a "generous donation," Dr. Trump said.
Sometime
after the fundraiser, the two Donalds met at Trump Tower in New York.
Dr. Trump described Mr. Trump as engaging, and interested in the
doctor's work.
The doctor hinted at
Mr. Trump's braggadocio, but said he wasn't as flamboyant as he is on
the campaign trail. He was "clearly successful and wasn't unhappy to
make sure I knew he was successful," Dr. Trump said.
Trump not voting Trump
Despite his previous interactions with the Republican nominee for president, Dr. Trump said that his politics have long been left of center and that he plans on voting for Hillary Clinton next Tuesday.
"I
have always felt kinship with Democratic political theories and
approaches," he said, being careful not to comment directly on his
namesake's politics.
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