Trump, blessed with more raw political cunning than any 2016 contender (including Clinton) hasn’t yet won a single contest, but he’s got good reason to pretend it’s already down to just the Democrat and him. That strategy allows him to talk past his Republican opponents, legitimizes him as his party’s frontrunner, gives him pushback against the argument he’d get creamed in a general election, and lets him dry-erase the fact that he flirted with not-so-conservative politics and the Clinton Clan.
1. He’s going there on Bill Clinton…
2. He’s beating the same media that’s beating her up. Clinton’s inability to master the press – or even understand the basic rules of controlling bad coverage – is legendary.
By contrast, Trump is an engaged ogre. From earliest days as a Gotham tabloid darling, Trump has embraced the need to directly and forcefully engage with the people who cover him. It’s an often ugly and confrontational relationship, but one that has worked to his decisive advantage: He hectors his press contingent and personalizes conflict (in a repulsive episode late last year, mocked the physical disability of a New York Times reporter) but they seldom leave without a headline. Trump campaign reporters are often singled out for abuse at his rallies, but they occupy a central space in his campaign, and he deals with them directly without a screen of press staff.
And unlike Clinton, he often schmoozes with reporters — even after calling them “disgusting” or “unfair” a day or two earlier.
3. He’s fun. Hillary Clinton is a broccoli politician – Donald Trump is an all-you-can-eat donut truck.
Clinton’s support is deeper and (probably) more durable, but the respective size and passion of their crowds speak to her vulnerabilities, if not necessarily his electability. Clinton events are predictable, stodgy, policy-lecture pep rallies designed to bond her to the constituencies she must galvanize to win. Trump’s rallies are gut-punch populist rambles through his id punctuated by the raucous ejection of pop-up protesters that break out with the approximate frequency of minor-league hockey fights.
