John
Kasich does well when he can sit next to you in a diner and ask about your
grandkids, but this country is too big for that kind of campaigning.
By Donald Kaul
To use a phrase that doesn’t come readily to my lips: “Well I’ll be danged.”
New Hampshire, that bastion of sensible conservatism and
rectitude, gave us not one unelectable candidate, but two — Donald Trump
and Bernie Sanders. Trumpmentum has only edged up since then while the Bern has
started to flicker.
How anyone expects either one of these guys to be elected
president is beyond me.
We’ve had some real eight-balls in the Oval Office, I’ll grant
you. Warren Harding comes to mind, as does James Buchanan. I’d even throw
George W. Bush in there.
But we’ve never had a foul-mouthed ignoramus who insults, women,
Latinos, Muslims, war heroes, the disabled, and poor, downtrodden journalists.
That’s Trump. That’s presidential?
Well, I guess so. Veteran observers of the political scene, who
are hardly ever wrong (ha), say that his smashing first-place finishes in New
Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada have put him on a trajectory that will be tough to interrupt.
Personally, I don’t still see Trump winning the nomination. I know, I’ve said that before, but I’m doubling down on that bet.
The reason Trump is leading in the polls is that he’s got so
many opponents running against him. As more of them drop out, the opposition
may finally begin to unite behind an anti-Trump. At that point, his support
base, however enthusiastic, might not be formidable enough.
Unfortunately, none of those opponents looks quite up to the
task.
Ted Cruz is apparently as disliked by his colleagues as everyone says he
is.
Marco Rubio has turned out to be a toy poodle rather than an attack dog.
John Kasich does well when he can sit next to you in a diner and ask about your
grandkids, but this country is too big for that kind of campaigning.
Which would seem to leave he field wide open for Hillary
Clinton, a reasonable candidate despite her disastrous performance in the New
Hampshire primary. (Have I told you it was a disaster? It really was.)
Her problem is that she carries more baggage than a Victorian
dowager on an around-the-world cruise.
The FBI is investigating her rather cavalier approach to her
email correspondence when she was secretary of state. Reporters are
hounding her to release the transcripts of those $225,000-a-pop speeches that she gave to Wall Street fat
cats when she was between jobs. And then there’s Benghazi.
All of that makes for a truly entertaining (and utterly
terrifying) election in the fall.
OtherWords columnist Donald Kaul lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. OtherWords.org.