Keller @ Large: May The Least Horrible Candidate Win
BOSTON (CBS) - Congratulations, Democrats and Republicans – you've chosen your presidential nominees, two aging baby-boomers with sky-high negative ratings and plenty of toxic political baggage.
And for the next six months we'll be treated to the fruits of your labor.
I've said it before and I'll say it again – Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president. But she's got big problems.
On her left, large numbers of Democrats made it clear they don't want what she's selling. It won't be easy to motivate them to back her in November, even though her opponent may help. And after running left in the primaries, the predictable pivot toward the center will enhance a damaging narrative about her, earned over many years of bloody combat and moments of questionable judgement – that she is expedient, instinctively dishonest, and untrustworthy.
Good luck with that.
By contrast, Donald Trump lacks any of the usual qualifications for the presidency, experience and knowledge foremost among them. His well-earned negatives are even worse than Clinton's.
But he does have a keen feel for what's bugging millions of Americans, and an apparently engaging way of pandering to it. Can he control his ego long enough to lure enough skeptical conservatives and moderates back into the fold?
We're about to find out.
Six months of fear and loathing lie ahead.
May the least horrible candidate win.
Listen to Jon's commentary: