The hubris of the 2016 candidates
Washington (CNN) Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are
better at beating themselves than each other.
They're not just the most unpopular presidential nominees in
recent memory: In the epic drama of the 2016 election, they're also tarnished
heroes who are perpetually humbled by their own self-defeating flaws.
The rivals, playing out their tragicomic duel on the
grandest electoral stage, are like two Shakespearean protagonists falling prey
to hubris, the excessive pride that can make a politician believe the rules
that govern normal mortals do not apply to them.
Clinton's penchant for secrecy and
distaste for disclosure have been the common theme in the deepest morasses of
her long political career. Trump's overwhelming ego and self-obsession are at
the root of the most damaging controversies that have raged around his wild
presidential campaign.
And only one can survive. Within
10 days, the loser will see their hopes destroyed and partly have themselves to
blame. The winner will go on to a presidency that at least in part will entail
a battle against their fatal flaws.
Right now, it's Clinton who's on defense.
Her hopes of calmly cruising to an easy election win were
shattered by FBI Director James Comey's sudden announcement Friday that the
bureau is reviewing emails potentially related to Clinton's personal email
server.
The new controversy centers on emails found on a device
shared by Clinton's close aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, Anthony
Weiner.
The Democratic nominee is responding by going on offense,
accusing the FBI chief of interfering in the climax of a crucial political
battle.
"It's pretty strange to put something like that out
with such little information right before an election," Clinton told
supporters in Daytona Beach, Florida, on Saturday.
Whether Clinton's complaint is valid or not, the case would
never have been thrust into the frenzied final days of the presidential
election were it not for her decision to use a private email server in the
first place -- something she has admitted is a mistake.
The move was consistent with a character trait that has
haunted Clinton throughout a quarter century in national politics. Critics
argue that from the Whitewater real estate drama through the various pseudo
scandals of the Clinton administration to her own campaign's missteps, she has
made controversies worse by keeping things too close to the vest.
Neera Tanden, president of the liberal think tank Center for
American Progress, asked the obvious question to Clinton's campaign chairman
John Podesta.
"Why didn't they get this stuff out like 18 months ago?
So crazy," Tanden wrote to Podesta in March 2015, according to hacked
emails released by WikiLeaks.
Tanden then answered her own question: "They wanted to
get away with it."
Clinton also attempted to escape scrutiny by the reporters
for much of her campaign, going months without a press conference at one point.
Things changed in September, when the campaign finally
brought reporters on Clinton's plane. Since then, she's regularly held informal
gaggles and press conferences -- but even this shift, it seemed, happened
grudgingly.
Clinton joked that her aide, Jennifer Palmieri, had forced
her to the back of her plane to meet journalists.
"Good morning, everybody. I will come back later. Jen
has convinced me I need to," Clinton said.
Clinton's allies defend her obsession with privacy by saying
there's never been a political figure so unfairly victimized by her enemies --
by the "vast right-wing conspiracy" Clinton lambasted while she was
first lady.
But justified or not, the tendency for opaqueness stings her
again and again.
It was on display with her refusal to release speeches she
gave to big Wall Street banks that became an issue with her Democratic rival
Bernie Sanders. When the speeches were revealed in a WikiLeaks hack, their
anodyne nature made everyone wonder what the fuss was about.
Clinton didn't disclose her diagnosis of pneumonia, but her
fainting spell at a September 11 memorial event forced the campaign to come
clean, renewing complaints that she simply doesn't want the public to know what
is going on.
Trump can't resist a fight
Trump is also a master of
self-immolation.
His gargantuan ego perpetually
has him in hot water and leaves him volcanic at the smallest personal slight.
It's a character glitch that's embroiled him in politically damaging spats with
the parents of a fallen US Muslim solider, a Venezuelan beauty queen and an
Indiana-born federal judge of Mexican heritage.
Trump's hubris was on display in the
most damaging moment of his campaign, the release of a decade-old video
showing him boasting about how his power and wealth meant he could make
unwanted advances on women.
"When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do
anything ... You can do anything," Trump told "Access Hollywood"
host Billy Bush.
Most presidential candidates at
least give lip service to the idea that their campaigns are an expression of
the will of the American people. Not Trump.
Since he descended the golden escalator in Trump Tower last
year to jump into the race, it's been all about Trump: his wealth, how smart he
is, which famous people he knows, and -- until his fortunes took a dive -- his
poll numbers. It's an approach that has allowed him to leverage his outsize
personality and anti-establishment fervor to his advantage among adoring
crowds. But the flip side has hurt him.
Last week, for instance, he trampled all his own closing
argument in a speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by lashing out at women who
accused him of sexual assault.
He's also ignored the advice of political aides like Paul
Manafort and Kellyanne Conway, who helped revive his campaign but then saw the
nominee veer off on his own direction, causing his political fortunes to
plummet.
And he's also now gone months without a formal press
conference.
While each candidate seems unable
to prevent their own deficiencies from defining their campaigns, they've been
uncannily good at exploiting their rival's flaws.
Clinton's obsessive secrecy, which has drawn her into
repeated scandals and pseudo-scandals over quarter of a century on the national
political stage, is the building block on which Trump has built his
"Crooked Hillary" caricature.
"This is the biggest political scandal since
Watergate," Trump said on Saturday in Colorado, expanding his denunciation
of her honesty and character.
Clinton, meanwhile, based her entire
debate strategy around his fundamental flaw. She knew he'd be unable resist her
provocations as she jabbed him over his bank balance, personality and treatment
of women.
And she exploited his short fuse when his ego takes a hit,
to bolster her case that he's unfit to be commander in chief.
"A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can
trust with nuclear weapons," Clinton said during her Democratic convention
address.
CNN's MJ Lee contributed to this report.
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