Who’s having a worse summer than Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus? Try Hillary Clinton.
Priebus has had to watch as politics’ new Sultan of Smack Talk, the Long Island Lip — d.b.a. Donald Trump, presidential candidate — has commandeered the airwaves, insulted one GOP war hero (John McCain), given out the cell phone number of a fellow candidate on TV (Lindsey Graham), and generally overshadowed the party and its more serious candidates.
That Trump has done this in the name of “truth telling,” even as he flip-flops on issue after issue, must make it all the harder for Priebus & Co. to watch. But watching is about all they can do. Embrace The Donald and they embrace the circus. Dismiss or ridicule him and they risk his making a Perot-esque third-party challenge, all but assuring another Clinton presidency.
Yet, amid all this, it is Clinton who is again losing her air of inevitability.
Unlike the last time this happened, eight years ago, it’s not because of a rising Democratic star. Bernie Sanders is no Barack Obama, at least not in political talent. Elizabeth Warren, who might have been, has surely waited too long to launch a campaign. Joe Biden could still enter the primary, if he wanted to lose.
No, this time around Clinton’s troubles are all of her own making, even if it appears no one can exploit them before the general election.
The missing emails from her time as secretary of state; the web of interests and conflicts between the Clinton Foundation and foreign governments; the millions of dollars she and Bill have received for speaking to the very financial firms she would regulate and public universities she would subsidize — the steady drumbeat of such bad news about her has taken a toll.
Clinton still leads potential Republican rivals in national opinion polls. But we don’t elect presidents in a single national contest. As usual, the election will be decided in a handful of swing states. The outlook for Clinton in those states, while early and based on limited data, isn’t good.
Take a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday that covered three purple states: Colorado, Iowa and Virginia. Respondents were asked, among other things, if they would vote for Clinton vs. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or Scott Walker. Clinton trailed all three in all three states: 0-for-9.
Just three months earlier, she led in seven of those nine match-ups. Even Trump’s rapid rise hasn’t taken him past all his competitors in so many key states.
Since April, Clinton’s favorability rating in all three states has fallen sharply. The only Republican viewed less favorably in all three states was — you guessed it — Trump.
Majorities in each state deemed Clinton untrustworthy. Voters in all three states were more likely to say the three leading Republicans “have strong leadership qualities” and “care about the needs and problems of people like you.”
Which Republican emerges as the nominee may depend on which shows the honesty some voters attribute to Trump, the empathy he only feigns toward them, and the leadership to deploy each at the appropriate time. Do that, and the GOP may find a wounded Democrat waiting for them next fall.
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