A recent Sun editorial on Hillary Clinton exposed the bias of the media as well as the beltway elite ("Clinton's foundational problem," Aug. 24).
At the age of 60, then-Senator Clinton was the Democratic Party's anointed choice in 2008 but was bypassed by a black senator with no experience in governance. At the age of 68, after a four-year stint as secretary of state, she was challenged by a 74-year-old curmudgeon who described himself as a "democratic socialist" and who has won no major victories in a long political career.
Had the party's super delegates not intervened she might have lost again. She is not a likable person and is considered to be dishonest by the majority of the Democratic base.
Opposing her is Donald Trump, a narcissistic bully, television personality and businessman with ruthless practices. He is on his third wife and his past marital indiscretions were made for reality TV.
Through a marathon primary season he dispatched 16 other excellent potential candidates; faced a rebuke by the Republican high priests in a special issue of the National Review, endured scathing criticism of his character from 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney; and more recently beat back another run by the Republican establishment questioning his ability to lead in a crisis. Except for FOX News, the print and TV media oppose Mr. Trump.
Using mostly his own money Mr. Trump first competed with a massive advertising campaign onslaught by his Republican opponents and now the Democrat machine. Various Republican stalwarts refuse to support him. In short, he is an unlikable outsider who has defeated the entire Republican machine and mass media and is running a respectable race against an opponent who is on her second pass with no views other than that it she is entitled to win. His performance to date is unprecedented.
Trump has some radical proposals but he is the only candidate in recent times that has forced a discussion on immigration, trade, Islamic terrorism and the national debt. His base of support is mostly among unemployed blue collar workers, the religious right, the gun rights people and the remnants of the tea party.
The rise of Mr. Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders signal that there is a massive disconnect between the ruling class and the voting public that will boil and bubble long after November
As the saying goes be careful what you wish for. With a Clinton win the nation will still have 120 million Protestant evangelicals, Catholics and Mormons that oppose progressive views on marriage, abortion and God's place in the nation.
There are 80 million gun owners that bridge both parties. Ms. Clinton was complicit in the destruction of Libya, Syria and Egypt and the rise of ISIS. She offers nothing to shrink the massive trade deficits created by low-cost foreign products.
The nation needs more than Ms. Clinton's fantasy of robbing the rich to pay for a yet to be defined make-work project accelerating the unsustainable federal budget deficit. If she wins in November we can look forward to another four years of international chaos and domestic upheaval.
Charles Campbell, Woodstock