The High Cost of a Bad Reputation

"Life lessons that Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz should have learned decades ago."

WSJ  . . . "For Mr. Cruz the lesson hit home with the damage, however small or significant, caused by Mr. Trump’s putting forward the issue of Mr. Cruz’s constitutional eligibility, due to birth in Canada, for the presidency. Mr. Trump was particularly devilish: He didn’t insist Mr. Cruz was ineligible but simply said, with an air of mock concern, that a President Cruz could bog the country down in years of court challenges. This was primo Doubt-Casting, aimed at giving potential Cruz supporters reservations.

 "As for Mrs. Clinton, she has clearly been rattled by Mr. Trump’s merciless resurrection of her alleged complicity in the sometimes brutal handling of women involved in her husband’s dramas. This reminds everyone of—and introduces young voters, who were children during the Gennifer Flowers through Monica Lewinskystories to—the whole sordid underside of Clintonism. Mrs. Clinton clearly wasn’t expecting it, and she bobbled. She has never gone up against a competitor like Mr. Trump." . . .

After 23 years at the highest levels of public life, Mrs. Clinton has become encrusted by scandal, from her part in her husband’s dramas straight through to Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation and the emails, in connection with which she may be indicted. She brings scandal with her, always has. I would be surprised if many people were not thinking: “Do we really want to go back to all that again, knowing it never ends, knowing there will be another scandal, that all we have to do is wait?”