Blunt Object Seeks Moving Target: How Both Trump And Clinton Are Losing It
First things first. You need to be crazier than an outhouse rat to think you can take on the Clintons and the progressive left media choir in contemporary America.
Just ask Mitt Romney. By all accounts the 2012 GOP presidential nominee is a decent family man, a capable administrator, a turnaround artist in business and a man of faith. When he was finally spit out by the Democratic thresher in November of 2012 he was the Mormon Scrooge McDuck, a robber baron who gave a woman cancer and drove with his dog in a carrier on the car roof. In the 1980s. Oh right… he had “binders” full of women’s name for nominations to government posts.
Romney was gobsmacked by the river of bile flowing towards him. Coached up by the usual suspects in Republican Central, the former Massachusetts governor refused to fire back in kind against the Barack Obama Charm Offensive. Having let himself be defined by the Dems, he was whipped soundly on election day.
“Enter Donald Trump, the unreconstructed man the Left had pretended Romney was. A media whore, a dandy, a braggart and a one-percenter with a questionable business past, Trump would have seemed a risky choice to engage the New York Times character-assassination vortex. But he had one over-arching asset that drew him to the disenfranchised right: He was crazy. I mean, cover-me-I’m-going-in-alone-crazy.”
The election wasn't the end of it for Romney. After being spanked by the voters, the election loser was defenestrated by the Republican base. The Tea Party/ talk radio crew was apoplectic about Obama’s spinmeisters and media sycophants like moderator Candy Crowley— who took Obama’s side in one of the debates. That resentment burst forth into a full-throated anger at Romney’s reticence. It was resolved that the next Republican nominee would be a blunt object to smash the self-satisfied Left.
But what kamikaze artist would invite the personal and political evisceration that awaited the man/ woman who sought to deny Hillary Clinton the mantle of first woman president of the United States? If someone as upstanding as Romney could be transformed into Bernie Madoff, what would they do with someone who carried a few warts?
Enter Donald Trump, the unreconstructed man the Left had pretended Romney was. A media whore, a dandy, a braggart and a one-percenter with a questionable business past, Trump would have seemed a risky choice to engage the New York Times character-assassination vortex. But he had one over-arching asset that drew him to the disenfranchised right: He was crazy. I mean, cover-me-I’m-going-in-alone-crazy.
Plus he was to be largely self-financing— through the primaries at least. Out of the clutches of the GOP establishment. Free to speak his mind. The ultimate outsider to expose the DC culture and its inbred presumptions. For a Republican base feeling gamed by the system, they’d put up with a lot of warts if it got a man/ woman who would push back for a change.
Which is how we’ve ended up here, with fewer than four weeks till American election day. Here meaning Trump excoriated by the liberal press for his sexual past, sinking in the polls and the GOP brain trust begging him, “For the love of all that’s holy, step down.” The bargain struck by the base to back the flawed candidate shows no signs of being cancelled. But if the end goal was to put a Republican in the White House, this was a disaster with a capital D.
But getting into a mud wrassle' with Trump has proven a phyrric win for the Clintons, too. Where the legacy media could have been reliably trusted to play it their way in the past, Hill and Bill discovered that social media wasn’t part of the deal to gloss over Bubba’s sexual past or the missus exposing state secrets on a private server in the family biffy. The demise of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz over attempts to deny Bernie Sanders the Democrat nomination—prompted by leaked emails— will not the last body hitting the floor on the left.
Even this week, the steady stream of hacked emails and the slo-mo release of Clinton State Department emails has revealed the political footsie going on between the Democratic elite and their media pals to beat Trump. From a CNN contributor leaking questions to Clinton in advance of a town-hall debate to her communications director sneering at people of Catholic and evangelical faith, reputations have been destroyed just as surely as Trump’s.
It’s not just Trump and the Clintons bruised here. The FBI decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton for breaches of security— which turned out almost as badly for her as being charged— is an anchor around the Bureau, too. FBI and Justice Department sources say that their once-proud outfits took a dive at the behest of the Obama White House and its DOJ capo Loretta Lynch.
For progressives who are celebrating the demise of The Donald in the short term, there will be no mandate in a Clinton win. Nor will there be a consensus if the GOP hang onto control of Congress. Get set for a battle over the Supreme Court as down-and-dirty as any Clinton/ Trump debate.
The only thing certain after all the Trump accusers and Wikileaks revelations about Clinton is that the November 8 election will simply be a mile marker on a longer highway. Get set for four more years of the Mexican Border Standoff. The new rules of video/ email ambush have been proven. The dirt will fly in both directions until 2020. Get used to it.
The only problem might be finding candidates will into endure it all for such a poisoned chalice.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy
Bruce's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience with successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he is also the best-selling author of seven books. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013).