Donald Trump’s poll numbers have plunged and it’s not because Hillary Clinton is on a roll or enjoying a temporary “post-election bounce.” Clinton has had a horrible three weeks since the Democrat convention and her negative rating have actually risen. But Donald Trump has had an even horrible-er three-weeks (I know “horrible-er” is not a word, but this presidential race is so bad it requires new adjectives).
Of those who admit they will vote for Trump, only 27 percent say they like him, while 56 percent say they will vote for him only because Clinton is “horrible-er” than Trump. Among those who say they will cast their vote for Clinton to be our first woman president, only 38 percent say they like her, while 45 percent say they will vote for her only because Trump is a “horrible-er” alternative.
The consensus of just about everyone is that Trump is the cause of his own demise. Trump, however, doesn’t see it that way. He recently claimed he would be beating Clinton by 20 percent if it weren’t for the disgusting media twisting his words. The week before, he blamed his Republican rivals for not lining up behind him. (Someone once said, “If you tell a girl all year that she’s ugly, don’t be surprised if she turns you down when you ask her to the prom.”) Before that, Trump said the Republican primary process was “rigged” against him. Now he seems to be saying that Democrats will make multiple trips to the voting booth.
When Trump received the Republican nomination, he could have followed tradition and extended an olive-branch to his former rivals; instead he chose to do a victory dance over their fallen bodies. He trashed Ted Cruz and vowed to start a Super PAC to defeat him in his bid for re-election to the Senate, and threatened to do the same to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Sen. Kelly Ayotte. Yes, nothing creates the appearance of unity faster than an old-fashioned purge.
What made Trump’s fight with Republican leaders even worse was that it overshadowed the bad news pouring down on the Clinton camp: FBI director James Comey’s scathing remarks about how Clinton mishandled her emails; the hacked emails released by Wikileaks that showed how the Democratic National Committee had worked against Bernie Sanders that resulted in Debbie Wasserman Shultz’s resigning as chairperson of the DNC; and mounting evidence that Clinton had traded favorable policy decisions for contributions to the Clinton Foundation when she was Secretary of State.
The Republican convention would have been an ideal time to criticize the Democrats’ platform of “more-free-stuff-for-key-voting-blocs” at a time when the nation is wallowing in $20 trillion dollars in debt. Instead, Trump decided to make it all about him by attacking the parents of a Muslim soldier who gave his life to protect others in his unit in Iraq. According to Trump, “they hit me, so I had to hit them back.”
That logic didn’t go over well with veterans who consider criticism of “Gold Star” mothers off-limits, or with women in general, who considered his comments insensitive.
Trump’s most recent controversy is his ludicrous claim that President Obama is “the founder of ISIS.” After repeatedly saying he meant it literally, he now claims it was sarcasm meant to the draw attention to Obama’s foreign policy failures. If that is the case, making stupid statements to draw attention to himself may have worked during the Republican primary, but it’s hurting his chances of getting elected president and could cost Republicans their control of the House and Senate.
It takes 270 electoral votes to be elected president. Right now, Clinton is ahead by six or more percentage points in states with a total of 283 electoral votes, while Trump leads by 6 or more percentage points in states with a total of 138 electoral votes. This suggests Trump would have to gain nearly 10 percentage points in the next 90 days to have a chance of winning the presidency.
There are many issues on which Clinton and the Democrats are vulnerable: the numbers in their economic plan don’t add up; their foreign policy is totally befuddled and naïve; Obamacare is a disaster; they are trying to reshape our government with no regard for the Constitution; the federal debt is a ticking time bomb; the bureaucracy is out of control and over-regulation is stifling our economy; our educational system is third-rate; and race relations are going in the wrong direction.
Most Americans know what the problems are; they want someone to put together lucid and viable plans to solve them. Criticism, juvenile name-calling, and trash-talking about irrelevant issues won’t do the trick. Trump needs to stop blaming others — the liberal media, the Republican establishment, voter fraud, and rigged polls — for his flailing campaign. He has been given excellent advice; he just won’t take it.
More is at stake in this election than Donald Trump’s ego or Hillary Clinton’s destiny to be our first woman president. Who will be our next president is not the most important decision voters will make in November. Just about everything Clinton and Trump say they are going to do, they can’t do on their own. Neither can appoint the next Supreme Court justice; the president only nominates persons for the position; it is the Senate that must confirm them. The president doesn’t make our laws; that is the job of Congress. The president’s job is to faithfully carry out the laws passed by Congress.
You may have a hard time deciding which presidential candidate is more terrible-er, but the races further down the ballot may actually be more important.
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