Two Presidential Candidates Stuck in Time
A little over a week ago, he marked his 100th day in office with a “campaign rally” in Harrisburg, Pa., opening with a tribute to “the wonderful beautiful state of Pennsylvania,” which “carried us to a big beautiful victory on Nov. 8!”
“Does anybody remember who our opponent was?” he asked the crowd, setting off the familiar chant, “Lock her up.”
Nothing in recent history can match the sorry spectacle of a sitting president so desperate for adoration and so indifferent to actual governing that the only satisfaction he can get is from perpetuating the campaign.
.. Yet Mrs. Clinton, a person of greater substance, also seems unable to shake free.
.. Mrs. Clinton was asked about Mr. Trump’s approach to North Korea and Syria, and about women’s rights around the world. Her insights were strained by insinuations against the president, whom she still refers to as “my opponent.”
.. Something is awry with Mrs. Clinton’s strategy if she thinks she is undermining Mr. Trump by volunteering to be the diversion that he clearly wants her to be.
.. But coming from Mrs. Clinton, given her own unforced (but largely unacknowledged) errors in the campaign, such accusations can sound merely like excuses. And they play into Mr. Trump’s obvious ambition to keep last year’s campaign front and center.