OPINION:
The passionately courted undecided voter is beginning to wake up to the hard fact that soon he must make a choice. Will he stay home on election day, looking for the Prohibition or Vegetarian Party candidate, or swallow hard and choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Many — most, if the polls are right — will ultimately vote with far less enthusiasm than they ever expected to do. There’s a widely held view among politicians that most of the citizens have a realistic view of human nature and vote “against” rather than “for,” and if that’s true this is the year that proves it.
These voters will choose, as is sometimes the case, between two spectacularly flawed candidates, one of whom, like it or not (and millions don’t) will sit in the Oval Office for the next four years. It’s a difficult choice for many because they will be torn between distrust of the Democratic candidate and fear that the Republican candidate isn’t really up to the job. What’s clear from the bouncing polls is that many — perhaps most — of the voters, undecided or not, don’t really want to vote for Hillary. But they will if they can’t find what the pollsters and pundits call “a comfort zone” with the Donald. These voters make up 10 to 12 percent of the voters, more than enough to hold the election outcome within their grasp.
It’s a commonplace that voters won’t vote for a presidential candidate they cannot imagine behind the desk in the Oval Office. To say that they’re having a hard time imagining Donald Trump there is a gross understatement. The Donald faces a challenge similar to the one Ronald Reagan had to deal with in 1980. Mr. Reagan trailed Jimmy Carter, the incumbent, by several points in the October polls, even though it was clear that few voters thought Mr. Carter deserved a second term. He was the candidate of what he called “malaise,” but he had successfully drawn a caricature of Ronald Reagan as shallow and dangerous. Voters finally decided that agree with him or not, they weren’t frightened of him. The rest is history.
Donald Trump has a tougher time because he is clearly no Ronald Reagan. The Gipper had clear goals, he knew how to describe them, and he would not be distracted by extraneous and unimportant things. Voters have from the beginning of this campaign cycle been able to envision Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office, even though many of them are saddened and frustrated with the idea that she will be there. If the Donald can’t fix that, he’s a gone goose.
When he departs for Las Vegas for the final debate on Wednesday night, the Donald should resist the temptation to think up names to call Hillary (everybody already knows she’s “Crooked Hillary”), but to persuade voters who don’t like her, and there are many millions of them, that’s he’s a viable alternative. If he can do that he still has a chance. If not, he can get back to work on his golf game and resume his quarrels with Mexican judges and overweight beauty queens. He’ll be history.
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