Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that we were told that the presidential election was over?
It was so over that
And
Reduced in stature, bitter, he wiggled those stumps in anger, shrieking at the unfairness of American journalism, a billionaire Trumplestiltskin going down.
His political carcass was to be hauled off to some rendering plant, his bones to be boiled down for cosmetics for suburban independent women and for hair care products for those establishment Republican suits and the war party neo-cons who now back Clinton.
All Hillary had to do to win was protect her double-digit polling lead, and play prevent defense and avoid a formal news conference where she'd be asked tough questions.
You can see it, can't you, like a summer dream.
After her election, she's sitting on a big comfy pillow on her royal barge "The Wall Street" as it floats down the Potomac, while a great orchestra plays Handel's "Water Music" and she and Bill smile and wave,
And Hillary's jesters in the
But then summer did what summers do, and
It bites.
And now a new
So it's not over? This race has tightened?
Are the Democrats looking for a parking spot in Panic City? Not necessarily. But Democrats and establishment Republicans who loathe Trump might be chewing off a few fingernails.
Clinton's campaign is doing a remarkably fine job taking Trump's worst quotes and using them against him in devastating campaign spots in the battleground states. And she's doing well in those states where the
But elections are about momentum, and that momentum could be turning Trump's way, and that's her problem, as these two disliked, flawed candidates wage a battle to define the future of America.
Perhaps that's truly why this race is so brutal, so angry, and why the worried American corporatist establishment cleaves to Hillary as Donald plays the insurgent in this insurgent year.
We have an election with the establishment and Hillary on one side and Donald on the other, backed by the unemployed working class that once formed the backbone of the
'
Is it possible not to like Trump, yet also to loathe Clinton and the history of the Clintons and their lies and their parsing language and their contempt for the law, and worry what they'll do to the country? I think so.
But the way this plays out in the media, any slight nod toward Trump sets you up to be branded, angrily and publicly, as a bigot. It is a formulation that drives clicks for the legion of pro-Hillary writers, and it serves the Democrats well, but it also smacks of something else:
Of being herded by cowboys with cattle prods at the stockyards. And pushed too far, there could be a backlash in the chutes.
Clinton has many advantages. She's got
A great advantage is that American media has openly waged war on her behalf. She has
How can they all live happily together under the Hillary umbrella? They can't, not for long. It's an impossible coalition for Clinton to hold. But it won't break until after the elections in November.
So what happened to Hillary? How could it be so close?
Here's what happened. Hillary happened to Hillary.
Her problem is that she has always been
And Americans were reminded again of what the Clintons are really about, with the release before the
Americans were reminded of her wheedling, the lies, her inability to recall when asked by the FBI. The lost phones and iPads -- some smashed by a hammer. And those hundreds of
That's why the race has tightened. Americans were reminded about the true Hillary, and she can't have that.
And if you thought it was ugly before, just wait.
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John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who also hosts a radio show on WLS-AM.