Manners Still Matter, Mr. Trump
But never mind. Early Friday Trump tweeted that his ISIS accusation was only "sarcasm." Shame on us for taking him seriously.
Trump may be having fun but his unpredictability has cost him. Two weeks after the conventions, Trump's narrow convention bump was gone. He was trailing Clinton by more than six points in Real Clear Politics' daily average of the most recent nationwide polls.
And in interviews he actually acknowledged the possibility that he could lose, a major concession for a man who promised "so much winning" that we would grow tired of all the winning.
Yet even after his advisers suggested that he had achieved a new level of discipline in delivering his economic address on Monday in Detroit, Trump insisted that he would not change his strange ways. "At the end, it's either going to work," he said in a CNBC interview, "or I'm going to, you know, I'm going to have a very, very nice, long vacation."
Maybe that's his problem. Maybe he needs a rest. Or maybe he never expected his presidential campaign, which seemed to start as another one of his brand-building projects, to get this far.
Now he sounds perplexed that the childish name-calling that boosted his primary campaign ("Crooked Hillary," "Crazy Bernie" Sanders ...) falls flat in his general election campaign. What will he blame on Obama and Clinton next? Earthquakes? Hurricanes? The Zika virus?
At last, the man who proudly declared, "I'm so tired of this politically correct crap," to a cheering crowd in South Carolina last September may be learning the hard way that manners still do matter in politics. You can't insult your way to the White House, Jeb Bush told Trump in a primary debate, but Trump is still trying.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters criticize news media for bias against Trump. They weren't saying that when Trump was winning. In fact, Clinton's scandals would be getting a lot more attention, rightly or wrongly, if Trump didn't keep stealing the spotlight.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
