Hillary vs. Hillary

Ahhh. The political conventions are over. The hype is done. And now its time for the real mud-slinging to begin. Americans are faced with two bad choices.

Donald Trump—a man who appears to be one question deep, who is a blowhard and a narcissist; who shows little evidence of discipline on the campaign trail; who paints a dark (and in my view, generally accurate) picture of our current situation; a pugnacious non-politician who has tapped into an anger that pervades a large portion of the citizenry.

Hillary Clinton—a woman (a gender characteristic she will market repeated) who has been in and around politics for decades; who tells us (against all evidence) the Barack Obama's presidency has led to the best of times and she will continue it; who has been mired in scandal for decades; who has been demonstrably dishonest for decades, who is corrupt—not in the minor ways that most politicians are corrupt—but in ways that are shocking, who as a carpetbagging Senator accomplished little or nothing and as Secretary of State failed repeatedly in ways that have led to an unstable world.

Wow!

Kim Strassel has an interesting take on the coming 100 days:

... This is, essentially, a one-person presidential race.

It’s Hillary against Hillary. This November is about whether Americans can look at 40 years of Clinton chicanery and nearly a decade of broken Obama promises, and still pull the lever for her. Not that Donald Trump doesn’t matter. He does, in that he can help sharpen those concerns. But Hillary is the main event.

The polls bear this out. Aside from his recent convention bump, Mr. Trump’s numbers have been largely consistent. Whether he leads or trails, and by how much, is mostly a function of voters’ shifting views on Mrs. Clinton. Lately her poll numbers have been devastating.

A CNN survey this week showed 68% of voters say she isn’t honest and trustworthy—an all-time high. CBS found virtually the same number: 67%. In the CNN poll, meanwhile, only 39% of voters said they held a favorable view of Mrs. Clinton. This is lower than any time CNN has polled Hillary since the spring of 1992—before she was first lady.


Mr. Trump’s poll numbers also bear this out. He is currently leading in the Real Clear Politics average despite no real ground game, little real fundraising, little policy message, a divided conservative electorate, and one of the messiest conventions on record. As of June 30, Mrs. Clinton and her allies had raised a stunning $600 million, which is already being spent to trash Mr. Trump. Yet to little or no effect. Mr. Trump is hardly a potted plant, but even if he were . . .

Mrs. Clinton’s problem is Mrs. Clinton. She is running against her own ethical morass. Already she was asking voters to forget about cattle futures and fake sniper fire and Whitewater and Travelgate. Then she chose to vividly revive the public nausea with her self-serving email stunt and her Clinton Foundation money grubbing.

The Three Monkeys Democrats are willfully blind to Hillary's sordid history—telling us that she's a champion of little children and a defender of Women's rights (queue the lilting background music). They have convenient amnesia about of lot of other less complementary stuff. Donald Trump will assuredly work to remind the voting public of all of that stuff.