Bernie & The Donald

Three weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, and clarity emerges.

Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, is in trouble.

Polls show her slightly ahead of Socialist Bernie Sanders in Iowa, but narrowly behind in New Hampshire. And the weekend brought new revelations about yet more classified and secret documents sent over her private email server when she was secretary of state.

Between now and November, she will be traversing a minefield, with detonations to be decided upon by FBI investigators who may not cherish Clinton, and might like to appear in the history books.

Clinton’s charge about Donald Trump’s alleged “penchant for sexism” brought a counterstrike — her being the “enabler” of Bill Clinton’s long career as a sexual predator — that rendered her mute.Something like that is afoot again. Only, this time, the GOP has a far better shot of capturing the White House than in 1964 or, indeed, than it appeared to have at this point in 1980, The Year of Reagan.

In June 1964, Goldwater, about to be nominated, was 59 points behind LBJ, 77-18, in the Gallup Poll. On Sept. 1, he was still 36 points behind, 65-29. In mid-October, Barry was still 36 points behind, when some of us concluded that Mr. Conservative just might not make it.

Yet, in January and February of 1980, Ronald Reagan, during the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primary, never got closer than 25 points behind President Jimmy Carter, who led Reagan, on March 1, 58-33. Yet, that November, 1980, Reagan won a 44-state landslide.

Today, according to a new Fox Poll, Trump would beat Clinton by 3 points in the general election, if held now. Another poll shows Trump pulling 20 percent of the Democratic vote.

What this suggests is that nominating Trump is by no means a guarantee of GOP defeat. But beyond politics, what do the successes of Sanders, Trump and Cruz portend?

Well, Sanders and Trump both opposed the war in Iraq that the Bush Republicans and Clinton Democrats supported.

Both Sanders and Trump oppose NAFTA and MFN for China and the free-trade deals that Clinton Democrats and Bush Republicans backed, which have cost us thousands of lost factories, millions of lost jobs, and four decades of lost wage increases for Middle America.

Trump has taken the toughest line on the invasion across the U.S.-Mexican border and against Muslim refugees entering unvetted.

Immigration, securing the border, fair trade — Trump’s issues are the issues of 2016.

If a Trump-Clinton race came down to the Keystone State of Pennsylvania, and Trump was for backing our men in blue, gun rights, securing America’s borders, no more NAFTAs, and a foreign policy that defends America first, who would you bet on?

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