Just think it’s the month of May.
We still have to tolerate six months of presidential campaigning by the handful of candidates still standing.
By June 1, there will be little doubt that Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton are their party’s candidates for president.
That’s about all that is certain, the rest is unpredictable.
On paper Mrs. Clinton would be a clear favorite to be elected come November, but that’s on paper.
Realistically, anything can happen between now and Election Day and no doubt will. Mr. Trump has the distinction of having the most negatives of the two competitors.
He has alienated just about every likely voter and is left with a bunch of angry white people and a handful of people who have so much money that they can escape to Europe and far off lands to avoid a Trump in the White House.
Mr. Trump has announced that he will make an effort to win over the supporters of Bernie Sanders. There is a better chance that Saudi Arabia will embrace Israel, than Sanders people embracing him.
Which Sanders people could fall in love with Trump? There will never be a Trump coalition that includes Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and college educated people.
No doubt Mr. Trump will pick up a few Clinton detractors, but they were never Clinton people to begin with. The real question between now and November is which of the two standard-bearers has the greatest challenge to be competitive and it is actually both.
Mr. Trump has told the world that he will be more “presidential” in the months to come.
Does that mean he will stop using nasty names to fight Mrs. Clinton or retract what he has said about so many ethnic groups? Is he going to abandon the wall he has promised to build with Mexican money?
Is he going to stop alienating women with insults after insults? Is he going to retract all of his statements that were made over six years on the Howard Stern show?
Trump’s biggest problem is that there is no “do over’ in politics.
Once you say it or do it, you own it. Remember former President George H. W. Bush’s “read my lips” pledge?
How about Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis’s photo op in a tank with a Snoopy looking helmet on his head?
How about President George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner declaring the war in Iraq over.
By November, I am sure that all the women will forget the Megan Kelly slurs.
Hillary Clinton has a different problem besides Trump. There are millions of people out there who support Bernie Sanders and they are not going away gently into the night after the Democratic convention is over.
They will expect the Democratic candidate to deal with job losses, the suffering middle class and the young people who have felt the Bern with promises of free public college tuition and medical care for everyone.
We all know that most of the Sander’s platform can’t happen because it is totally unrealistic, but there is a lot of unhappiness on Main Street that has to be addressed.
The classic Democratic election platform is not going to work this time around.
Enough people out there are looking for change and they want to hear what Mrs. Clinton is going to do to help them. Will they embrace Trump? That isn’t even an option.
They want specific reasons why they should embrace Hillary after Bernie has thrown in the towel.
At the very worst, quite a few of them may stay home. They will be joined by all the traditional Republicans who will also stay home rather than support Trump.
The unhappy Democrats and the frightened Republicans could make the voter turnout even smaller.
The challenge for Mrs. Clinton is that she has got to turn on and energize a whole group of voters.
For Trump, the challenge is how will he be able to recoup the massive group of voters that he has turned off.
That’s what makes the next six months ahead so interesting.
