https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/campaigns-elections/trumps-opening-hillary-clinton/Trump’s OpeningJOHN PODHORETZ / JULY 13, 2016
Look, it could have been a history-remaking catastrophe for her and wasn’t, so she got off lucky—but face it, Hillary Clinton had one of the worst weeks a presidential nominee has ever had after James Comey indicted her without formally indicting her. And she’s taking a hit. Two polls show Clinton’s lead shrinking this week nationally to three points, and Quinnipiac’s state surveys show Donald Trump now ahead in Florida (an eight-point drop for Clinton in a month in Q’s findings) and Pennsylvania (a two-point drop). Add in third-party candidates from the Libertarians and the Greens and Hillary does even worse.
So Donald Trump has an opening and, even more notably, his opening comes just as he’s about to pick a vice-presidential candidate and accept the nomination of his party at the convention next week. If he handles the VP pick well and the convention goes well, Hillary’s bad week could stretch from one to three, especially considering the destabilizing social unrest in recent days—an issue that’s theoretically in Trump’s wheelhouse. Three weeks is a long time in politics.
The question is: Can Trump handle the next two weeks well? He almost bollixed last week by giving two uncontrolled and bizarre speeches after Comey’s announcement, but then wisely shut up and let the news about Hillary’s dishonesty sink in. So that showed a little restraint, though it has to be said the restraint was likely due in part to his inability to get a fix on how to talk about the shootings in Minneapolis, Baton Rouge, and Dallas. Which, again, may have inadvertently served him better than mouthing off.
Trump supporters should be nervous. First, the VP announcement is a huge whirlwind, and from what I can tell his campaign has done little to prepare for it—no campaign staff for the pick, no schedule of events for the VP, no organization to handle the press inquiries and hit job stories and the like. Trump himself may have managed his own whirlwind, but there will be another player here—someone with a wife and a political past of his own and instincts of his own and impulses of his own, and who knows how that will work.
Second, the convention may end up not being a disaster, but the clear lack of organization there too means all kinds of unexpected and unanticipated things damaging to Trump are likely to occur—from delegates saying crazy things, to reporters, to God knows what else. While Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is a convention specialist, you still can’t run an event with 20,000 people wandering around for four days on the fly without problems.
And, of course, there’s the man himself, who hasn’t had a good week since he became the putative nominee. Hillary’s numbers are bouncing up and down, but in state after state and nationally, Trump remains around 40 percent and hasn’t really moved. The question is whether that number represents a floor, a ceiling, or both. What’s clear, though, is that a more conventional general-election candidate would be wiping the floor with Hillary Clinton right now.
