For a long time now, I’ve been documenting the primal nature of Donald Trump’s campaign of machismo. The latest example is his retweeting of photos which juxtapose his wife and [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore]’s wife—the suggestion being that the former is hotter than the latter.
As the proud husband of a trophy wife, myself (I kid, feminists!), I can appreciate Trump’s desire to boast about his wife’s beauty. But the selectively chosen photos he retweeted don’t just do that; they actually denigrate both spouses.
One can only assume that, in Trump’s world, your wife’s level of attractiveness is relevant, inasmuch as it says something about your status as an alpha male “winner.” Pop quiz: Who said this: “Ugly girlfriend means no confidence”?
Donald Trump?… Kanye West?
… Actually, it comes from the movie Moneyball. As you might recall, the old school baseball scouts actually took the attractiveness of a player’s girlfriend as a legitimate tool for helping gauge a player’s potential ability. That’s no way to run a ball club—or a country.
* * *
Speaking of baseball, I’ve been searching for an analogy to explain why it’s not “unfair” for a contested convention to deny Trump the GOP nomination, according to the rules, if he fails to win the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. As is often the case, a sports analogy seems appropriate.
Last year, the St. Louis Cardinals won 100 games—the most in Major League Baseball. But they didn’t even make it to the World Series, much less win it! That hardly seems fair, right?
Well, that’s because once you make it into the playoffs, the game begins anew. And believe me, the playoffs are very different from the regular season. Likewise, once a contested convention begins, it’s a new ballgame. (Admission: This isn’t a perfect analogy.)
* * *
My last point—and I realize that this post is a bit rambling—has to do with Trump and Cruz and poll numbers. Trump boasts about beating Hillary Clinton, but the truth is he consistently trails her in the polls.
I’m not the first to make this observation about Trump. But what I think has been greatly underrated is the fact that Ted Cruz has been basically within the margin of error of Hillary Clinton since Thanksgiving, having led her by a few points most of 2016.
Conventional wisdom is that Cruz can’t beat Hillary, but—based on the numbers—this doesn’t seem fair. Cruz, in my estimation, hasn’t gotten enough credit for having consistently held his own (or better) in a head-to-head matchup with Clinton.
In spite of his admittedly stunning wife, Donald Trump—a man who was born on third base but thinks he hit a triple—consistently loses the whole ballgame to Hillary Clinton. Sad!