Has there ever been a more interesting presidential contest than this one? A few observations, as random as the race itself:
1. “Never trust a man who combs his hair straight from his left armpit.” Alice Roosevelt, daughter of Teddy Roosevelt.
2. Secretary Hillary Clinton’s weakness as a candidate has created a vacuum that Bernie Sanders can’t fill. And politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Another candidate will soon occupy it.
3. Hillary Clinton should knock on Joe Biden’s door and demand he jump into this race. Hiding isn’t working for her; she is looking small and defensive. Mrs. Clinton needs a primary so she can fight, grow stronger and give herself a real shot at the presidency. She has nothing to lose: If she can’t beat Vice-President Biden, she can’t win the general election anyway.
4. If Donald Trump is elected President, how long before Mexico gets a nuclear weapon? (That’s a joke, of course. But still….)
5. The great weaknesses of the narcissistic candidate are his love of power and addiction to risk. If Donald Trump blows up a real estate deal, he loses the Empire State Building. If President Trump blows up our relationship with Russia, he could start World War III. Trump is selling us his swashbuckling, deal-making style. In the end, it will doom him.
6. The first stage of Donald Trump’s rocket, the angry man’s campaign against the self-serving elites of both parties, can keep him around through the rest of the campaign, with about 20% of the vote, but it isn’t enough to win him the GOP nomination. The second stage to his rocket, his optimistic “Make America Great Again” could take him a lot further, but he will never jettison the first stage.
7. I like Mr. Trump’s “fabulous” health care plan more than his “fantastic” health care plan. But that’s just me.
8. Don’t you wish you had been there when Vice-President Joe Biden turned to Sen. Elizabeth Warren and said, “Give me a break, Elizabeth! We are going to let Bernie Sanders walk away with the Democratic nomination? I’m running, and you are going to be my VP!”
9. Hillary Clinton is a talentless politician. She is the Washington Generals of politics, who lose every game to the Harlem Globetrotters. There is no success she can’t prevent.
10. As Ben Domench points out, in France, the real opposition to the left-wing, big government party of President Francois Hollande is the right-wing, big government party of Marine La Penn. Trump’s similarly nativist and isolationist anger is the enemy of America’s classically liberal, small government Republican Party, not an inspiration for it.
11. Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party of Christmas past. Barack Obama and the Internet have left her a new and radicalized Democratic Party with which she is not familiar — and it shows. Today’s extreme Democratic Party has stripped the guy who wrote “All men are created equal” from its Jefferson-Jackson dinners and kicked Bernie Sanders, a socialist, off the stage for not being sufficiently liberal. Yesterday’s Democrat is not likely to get today’s nomination.
12. As governor, Jeb Bush opened up education to Floridians, instituting school choice, giving black Americans a hand. It’s good to see they have returned the favor.
13. Donald Trump has the highest paid and, perhaps, the most gifted marketing consultant in this race: Donald Trump. Trump becomes whatever role he inhabits, but it is calculated and manufactured. What Mr. Trump was yesterday, he is not today. The closer we get to the election, the more we will doubt what he will be tomorrow. More Republicans already say they will never vote for Trump than lend him their support. Voting for Mr. Trump will become increasingly risky.
14. Mr. Trump is a man hungry for power in business and, now, in politics. He doesn’t believe Washington is trying to do too much, just that “losers” and “morons” are running it. A small-government party, even one as anxious as Republicans are now, will not nominate an advocate of bigger government.
15. The other great vulnerability of the megalomaniac candidate is morality. The candidate who believes he is better than “stupid leaders,” may also believe the rules don’t apply to him.
16. No stars can shine near Donald Trump’s bright sun. He is sitting on top of and smothering the “angry conservative” wing of the Republican party and other choleric candidates like Ted Cruz. That is not a bad thing for the “optimistic-Reagan” wing of the GOP. Eventually, the Reagan conservatives will win.
17. Donald Trump is a unicorn. He is Halley’s Comet. He is not really a Republican, a conservative, or anything else we have seen recently in the GOP. In short, Trumpism is not transferable to the GOP nominee. When Mr. Trump is defeated, though that may take a long time, he will leave a nominee different from and little tarnished by Trumpism. It will be a new day for the GOP.
18. Megyn Kelly is going to be around a lot longer than Donald Trump. Bet on it.