Trump: Too Much Success, Too Soon?

I’ve made no secret about my belief that Donald Trump will win this election in November, based on the assumption that he would most likely be facing Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee.  If nominated, Mrs. Clinton would be the most inept and least politically appealing candidate nominated by either party since at least Bob Dole, and possibly since Adlai Stevenson.

On the off chance that Bernie Sanders somehow wins the nomination, Trump would easily defeat him as well.  Yeah, Sanders polls well against Trump right now, but that’s mainly due to the “Backup Quarterback” syndrome. 

What’s that mean?  On any college football team that has an underperforming starting quarterback, the most popular player among the fans is always, without exception, the backup quarterback.  That is, until said backup QB actually gets into the game and the fans figure out why he wasn’t the starter to begin with.  That’s the love affair Democrat and Independent voters are having with Bernie right now:  they all know in their hearts that Hillary is incredibly flawed and corrupt, and really don’t want to have to vote for her.   So Sanders occupies this wishful “if only” place in their hearts, and will continue to do so as long as he has no real shot at winning the nomination. 

That would all change were he to become the actual nominee, because the public would then have to confront head-on the real, true implications to our society that electing a 74 year-old Marxist to the presidency would bring, something they have not really had to do yet.  Trump, in that scenario, would possibly win every state in the country.

My view is that the real wild card for Trump is the still-alive possibility that the Democrats end up putting forth someone other than Hillary or Bernie as their party’s nominee.

It’s been obvious for a while that the polls in this race would tighten up once Trump became the presumptive nominee and went about uniting the party around him, and that has happened, much more quickly than even I thought it would.  In fact, it may actually be happening too quickly for Trump’s own good.

We suddenly now have seen two national polls over the last 24 hours showing Trump not only gaining on Hillary, but actually leading her by small margins.  The other national polls release in recent days have Hillary in the lead, but with a very small edge.  Taken all together, one reaches the inevitable conclusion that the race is now a dead heat, and Trump has every shred of the momentum behind him.

Good news for Trump, right?  Well, kind of, but not entirely.

We have to remember that Barack Obama and his utterly corrupt “Justice” Department literally hold Hillary Clinton’s fate in the palms of their collective hands.  It’s no secret that the President wants his Party to nominate someone who would in essence create a third term for his own agenda, and that is what Mrs. Clinton has promised to do in the hopes it would keep her out of jail.  Thus, so long as she pledged such fealty and appeared to be in good shape to win the general election, there was basically no chance the President would allow his Attorney General to pursue criminal charges against her no matter how strong the FBI’s case becomes.

But now, the situation has clearly changed.  Bernie has now won 9 of the last 10 contested primary states, Hillary is fading in the polls, and she and her campaign clearly have not the slightest clue about how to effectively attack Trump, or Sanders for that matter.  Meanwhile, Trump has united the preponderance of the GOP behind him, the goofy #NeverTrump minions are getting no traction finding some poor schlub to be their third party sacrificial lamb, he has made his peace with Megyn Kelly, has begun the effort of raising hundreds of millions of dollars for his general election campaign, and has actually built a professional campaign organization.

In this scenario, the President no doubt sees his hopes for a de facto third term flying out the proverbial window unless drastic measures are taken.  And he sees that drastic measure pretty much every day in the person of his Vice President, Joe Biden.

So, here is how this “could” all play out, if the President decides it is necessary: 

•  the FBI makes its criminal referral after deposing Hillary and her top assistants; 

• Obama gives the go-ahead to Justice to pursue criminal charges; 

• Hillary is thus forced to suspend her campaign;

• Sanders gets to the convention as the “leader”, but does not hold the necessary majority of delegates to win on the first ballot; and

• Joe Biden puts himself forward as the party’s White Knight, and is nominated on the second or third ballot.

Biden is goofy as Curly Howard and the same age as Bernie, but at least he has the advantage of not being an avowed Marxist.  Thus, the Democrats would have a “clean” nominee to rally around.

Trump would still beat Biden, but it would be a much more difficult task than defeating Hillary is likely to be.  So while he and his campaign are no doubt very happy with the events of the last two weeks, the one possible fly in this ointment is that he may have had too much success too soon.

Gawd, this is a fascinating campaign season.