Rich Lowry of National Review Online labels the Republican presidential nominee a “genuinely self-destructive candidate.”
Hillary Clinton may be the first candidate in American history to win a contest of personalities without having one.
She has been content to make the election all about Donald Trump’s character, and Trump has obliged because, really, what else would he consider as fascinating and important as himself?
In a more normal year, Obamacare would be a byword for the failures of liberal technocrat rule. Insurers have been exiting the exchanges, and many of those that are staying are hiking premiums by 20 percent or more. Even a Democratic governor, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, has said that Obamacare is “no longer affordable to increasing numbers of people.”
In a more conventional election, President Barack Obama’s foreign policy would be under relentless assault. The Russian reset is in flames. Syria is Obama’s Rwanda. Iran, with its nuclear program intact, is making a bid for regional hegemony. ISIS established its caliphate in the space created by Obama’s passivity.
In any other campaign, the economy would be front and center, and the slowest recovery in the post–World War II period a constant flashpoint.
Instead, none of these issues have had the resonance of Donald Trump’s early-hours Twitter war with a former Miss Universe, or even his aside in the third debate that Hillary Clinton is a “nasty woman.” And these have been third-tier controversies, compared with the ones that have truly rocked the campaign, such as Trump’s post-convention fight with the Khan family and the airing of the Access Hollywood tape.
It’s not as though Trump doesn’t talk about the issues. But nothing besides his core of immigration and trade has the force to escape the extreme gravitational pull of his persona, which is outsized, compelling, and — in a presidential campaign — ripe for deconstruction.
