http://www.sentinel-standard.com/blogs/20160601/hunch-trump-will-quit-race-if-he-thinks-hell-lose-by-wide-margin?template=printartBy Pat Cunningham
June 01. 2016 2:23PM
As I've acknowledged on several previous occasions, my predictions over the past year regarding Donald Trump's presidential candidacy have all been wrong.
I said he wouldn't actually make good on his talk about getting into the race. I said he wouldn't file the required financial data. I said he wouldn't have a chance of winning the Republican nomination. I said…well, you get my point. I have been wrong all along.
Oh, sure, I still stand by my prediction that The Donald will not win the presidency. But I'm also prepared to pass along a hunch that's occurred to me concerning the coming course of events before any of the actual votes are counted. No, it's not a flat-out prediction. Rather, it's just my conditional sense of things.
While watching Trump's pathetic news conference on the subject of his fundraising for veterans' organizations, I suddenly became aware of how thin-skinned he seems to be at criticism from his favored constituencies. He doesn't seem to care about the barbs he gets from the media, liberals in general or even the Republican establishment. But he seemed genuinely upset yesterday at suspicions about his claims concerning his contributions to veterans.
We already know that Trump is a world-class narcissist. We also know that he follows the polls very closely. On countless occasions in the past year, he has bragged about polls showing his political strength. But what would happen if the polls showed serious erosion in support for his candidacy? What would happen if the tide suddenly turned against him in a big way? What would happen if it became apparent that he was going to lose in a landslide in November?
Such a turn of events is not as unlikely as some people seem to think. It's not a cinch, but neither is it out of the question. And Trump's response is probably more predictable than almost anything else about him.
My hunch is that his narcissism would explode, blowing all the fuses in his mind. His only available out — short of bravely suffering the unflattering judgment of the electorate — would be to quit the race before the voting begins. He could claim that a health problem has arisen. Whatever.
But the last thing I expect is for Donald J. Trump to suffer defeat with the grace that the vast majority of other presidential losers in American history have.
Such grace simply is not part of the man's character.
