Donald Trump cannot resist the temptation to re-litigate the 2016 election.
Neither can some of the rest of us who didn’t support the president in his winning bid for the White House.
That all said, I want to state something that won’t surprise regular readers of this blog: If I could re-cast my most recent vote for president a second time, I would cast it in a New York minute for the candidate I supported in 2016; that would be Hillary Rodham Clinton.
We’re coming up on the first year since Trump took the oath of office. It’s been the longest year of many of our lives. Each day, let alone each week and month, has brought crisis upon crisis. Headaches caused by chaos and confusion abound in the White House. The president cannot get his feet under him.
It’s fair to wonder: Would a President Hillary Clinton have taken office amid such stumbling and bumbling? No. The transition would have been seamless.
It also is fair to ponder whether Hillary Clinton was the perfect candidate for president. Of course she wasn’t. She had her flaws. Clinton didn’t seem genuine. At times she sounded and actually looked inauthentic. But I didn’t — and still don’t — buy the notion about her being “crooked.” Her flaws as a candidate in my view do not include criminality.
My continued support for Hillary Clinton, I must add, presumes she would run against Donald Trump. To be totally candid, there were other Republicans I found much more attractive than the guy who won the GOP nomination. Had the nominee been, say, Ohio John Kasich or perhaps even U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida I might be persuaded to vote Republican for the first time in my voting life. I particularly like Gov. Kasich — and I actually would like to see him challenge the president in 2020.
However, if I had the chance to vote all over again between Trump and Hillary Clinton, I wouldn’t regret for a minute supporting Clinton.
Her competence and her understanding of government cannot be questioned. Neither can we question her decorum or her dignity.
I grew tired very early in the Trump administration of shuddering at the president’s rhetoric. I have zero doubt that Hillary Clinton would know how to act presidential.