The latest Fox News poll has an intriguing question.

What is your biggest motivation voting for president this year?

Fear the other candidate wins, 57%.

Enthusiasm for a candidate, 39%.

Well that pretty much says it all.

The majority of American voters are voting against, rather than for Clinton or Trump.

So why is that happening?

Let's take Donald Trump first.

His problems with voters originate in two areas.

First, his business background.  It is not compatible with politics.

Business people like Trump -- and to some extent Mitt Romney before him -- maximize profits and promote their products sometimes in flamboyant ways.

Both of those things can be exploited politically.

For example, when The New York Times reports that Donald Trump took a $900 million plus tax loss back in 1995, the paper does so in an accusatory way.

But almost any corporation would do the same thing.

If some of your enterprises tank, you are allowed to deduct the losses against future gains.

That is a hallmark of our tax system in America.

So of course Trump took advantage of his faltering casinos and wrote-off gigantic losses.

Fair-minded people can look at it two ways: That Trump is gaming the system because he is not upfront about his tax returns.

Or that he is to be admired for taking losses and then turning his companies around.

As a responsible voter, how you see it is up to you.

But there is no question that mr. Trump is getting hammered in the court of public opinion because his opposition is labeling him a business failure and a greed head.

Whether Mr. Trump can overcome The New York Times report remains to be seen.

It's the same on the woman issue.

This whole Alicia Machado deal is basically a contrived issue.

Ms. Machado despises Donald Trump and signed on with the Clinton campaign to disparage him.

For his part, Trump did what he always does: He took a business situation -- the Miss Universe pageant, which he owned -- and tried to maximize publicity.

So when Ms. Machado gained some weight, Trump exploited it by taking her to the gym and getting media attention.

If you know anything about Donald Trump, that's what he does -- gets attention, sometimes crass attention.

So Trump is vulnerable because of his business background and his high-profile marketing strategies.

And the Clinton campaign is using that to brand him a misogynist.

Of course, the press is playing along.

Yesterday, NBC's Chuck Todd tried to lay a trap for Rudy Giuliani about the woman issue and the Clinton marriage:

Meet the Press, Oct. 2

CHUCK TODD, MODERATOR OF NBC’S “MEET THE PRESS”: “She was wrong to stand by her husband?”

RUDY GIULIANI (R), FMR. MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY : “No, she was wrong to attack the victim. The woman who says—“

TODD: “Are you the right person to level this charge?”

GIULIANI: “Yeah.  I'm the right person to level this charge, because I've never made such a charge, and I've prosecuted people who've committed rape.”

TODD: “But your past, you have your own infidelities, sir.”

GIULIANI: “Well, everybody does.  And I'm a Roman Catholic, and I confess those things to my priest.  But I've never-- I've never ever attacked someone who's been the victim—“

TODD: “Okay.”

GIULIANI: “Who's been the victim of sexual abuse.  Not only that, I've put people in jail who've been the victim of sexual abuse.”

TODD: “Well, all right. Well—“

GIULIANI: “And I've never participated in that.  And I think your bringing up my personal life really is kind of irrelevant to what Hillary Clinton did.  She's running for president, I'm not.”

Now Mr. Todd was totally out of line trying to set up Mr. Giuliani that way.

He owes the mayor an apology.

But the central issue is that Donald Trump feels he needs to discuss the Clinton marriage.

Manheim, PA rally, Oct. 1

TRUMP: “Hillary Clinton's only loyalty is to her financial contributors and to herself.  I don't even think she's loyal to Bill, if you wanna know the truth. (EDIT FOR APPLAUSE) And really folks - why should she be right?”

Talking Points believes statements like that are a mistake, that American voters, especially women, do not like the personal stuff.

They don't like it when Rudy Giuliani is attacked, they don't like it when presidential candidates descend into the mud.

Yes, if Hillary Clinton attacks Donald Trump on the woman issue, he has a right to defend himself but he should keep it pithy.

Any disparagement of any woman by Trump will drive his numbers down with women voters.

And Trump needs more of them if he wants to win the White House.

Now let's take a look at why Hillary Clinton is not very popular with the public.

Her main problem stems from the perception that she does not tell the truth.

There is little Mrs. Clinton can do about that.  Benghazi, the emails, Whitewater -- all that stuff is not going away.

The secretary is smart to play down those questions.  She will never win on that front; going on the defensive is not a winning political strategy.

But in order to get away from the perception that she is not an honest person, she must convince Americans that she is looking out for them, that her political vision will be beneficial to the country.

To do that, Mrs. Clinton must talk directly to the folks, but she avoids most interviews --perhaps because of the email and Benghazi stuff.

So it's a catch-22 -- you can Google that if you don't know what it means.

But Hillary Clinton has a larger problem, and that is a kind of personality quirk.

We saw that the day after last week's debate.

Raleigh, North Carolina, Sept. 27

HILLARY: “Did anybody see that debate last night?  (cheers) Ooooh yes!”

Now that looked an awful lot like gloating, which politicians can do to some extent but it doesn't really help in the personality arena.

Fox News Sunday, October 2

BOB WOODWARD, THE WASHINGTON POST: “That clip shows this kind of self-congratulation, this self-satisfaction. And as we know, and as we try to teach our children, when you win something, don't gloat. Humility works.  And the problem for her is this feeds the notion that she's in this for herself.”

Mr. Woodward nails it -- if Hillary Clinton wants to be president, she needs to back away from it's all about me and make it all about us.

Again, the only way to do that is to speak directly to the folks.

Summing up, right now we have two presidential candidates who worry a lot of voters.

If the election were held tomorrow, Talking Points believes the turn out would be low.

And many of those who did vote would be voting against, rather than for one of the candidates.

There is still time for Clinton and Trump to get a more positive policy-oriented message to the voters.

But both of them have to stop making mistakes, stop mudslinging and stop being self-centered.

Finally, Donald Trump is a man who does not take slights well.

I can sympathize, I'm the same way.

But over the years I have learned to ignore most of the smears that come my way because I have far more important things to do on The Factor than to deal with personal slights.

That lesson did not come easy to me, and I wasted some of your time talking about stupid stuff that I should've ignored.

But today I let a lot of stuff go and Donald Trump might consider doing the same thing.

His supporters like his policy vision; they don't care about the personal stuff.

In the end, Mr. Trump will have to win over more supporters and policy is the way to do it.

And that's the memo.