The View | Hillary Clinton is pretty much a slam dunk to become the next US President
Another Democrat in the White House looks nearly inevitable at this point ‘if professional electoral political skills still prevail’
President Ronald Reagan was known as “The Gipper” after a previous acting role. The next President may be known as “The Groper” if Donald Trump beats all the odds and finally succeeds at the ballot box.
Trump has broken all the rules of professional electoral politics and yet is still riding high in the polls. Conventional thought is that to succeed you have to be popular but inoffensive. You must have no skeletons in the closet; fleshy or financial. You have to have a long and clear career – no illegal hiring of maids, no intemperate words after a few beers.
Trump’s candidacy is another test of whether you need political skills to win an election
You must be boring in dress and lifestyle and be nice to people you don’t want to spend time with. A previous career is especially dangerous as it can expose behaviour acceptable in a schoolboy football team but not, in the cold light of dawn, for a professional politician.
In recent years, we have seen the rise and rise of the amateur politician. Neither Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi or Rodrigo Duarte in the Philippines were elected with career-long political skills. They succeeded by trumpeting a populist message that obscures a determined drive for personal power. Berlusconi, the businessman, led Italy to 10 years of recession. Trump’s candidacy is another test of whether you need political skills to win an election.
Trump is the antithesis of a professional politician. He willingly boasts that he avoids taxes. He will tell a barefaced lie in front of the fact checkers. He bluffs and bullies, but this is not important to his supporters who bask in the sunlit uphills of hope in a populist candidate. His list of political gaffes is so long that it is difficult to remember his attack on an army veteran’s family, usually fatal to a political career.
He insults with impunity; not just Mexicans and former beauty queens, and shockingly threatened to use the machinery of state to jail his political opponent. Yet he betrays the weakness politicians most fear - a thin skin. In politics, you need a hide like a rhino to take unfair abuse, for if there is no dirt, the other side will make it up. You cannot negotiate peace treaties or trade deals if you can’t resist your opponent’s barbs. Professional politicians understand that game.