Political reporter Dan Balz predicts that this fall’s general election will be more negative than ever before, and warns that the result of such a bitter campaign will make it “almost impossible” for the eventual winner to govern.
The general election “has all the earmarks of being even more negative than 2012, [and] by far more negative than 2008,” Balz told David Axelrod on “The Axe Files” podcast, produced by CNN and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. “It will take a Herculean effort after a campaign like that to try to govern.”
That means trouble for both Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and Republican primary leader Donald Trump, according to Balz, the chief Washington correspondent for The Washington Post.
“If [Clinton] becomes the President of the United States, she’s going to work hard at trying to make the system work,” Balz said. “But we also know that the hostility to her that’s built up over the last 20 years will make that very, very difficult. If Trump becomes the President, if he’s the nominee and wins in the fall, the opposition to him will be, I think, even more significant.”
Overall, Balz said, “we’re in a very difficult, bad period in American politics, in which, with each election cycle, it seems to drive things… farther apart.”
“At some point you have to think… collectively the country will say ‘enough of that, we’ve got to get some things done,’ but I don’t know that we’re there at this point,” he added.
To hear the whole interview with Balz, which also touched on his start in journalism at the University of Illinois, his career covering politics, and much more, click on http://podcast.cnn.com. To get “The Axe Files” podcast every week, subscribe at http://itunes.com/theaxefiles.