Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton: Sleaze bubbles to top in frothy US Presidential election

WASHINGTON: Slime and sleaze has bubbled to the top in the most revolting US Presidential election in living memory courtesy Republican Party nominee Donald Trump .

The billionaire entertainment mogul's forays into smut and smudge about a former Latina beauty contestant has resulted in a blowback about his own peccadillos, even as he has threatened to raise marital issues involving his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and her spouse in the second presidential debate .

Stand by for – or run from — more ugly bilge in a surreal political moment in the self-appointed greatest country in the world.

Much of America is still in shock after Trump came unhinged in a series of 3am tweets casting aspersions on a former Miss Universe who he had dissed as Miss Piggy (because she was overweight), including urging them to "check out sex tape and her past." The exhortation only resulted in his critics and rivals checking out Trump's own past, to discover that had told a radio show of watching the infamous pornographic video of billionaire heiress Paris Hilton, and finding her attractive when she was only 12.

Worse followed: The tabloid media, and even some of his supporters, went catatonic after it emerged that Trump himself appeared in a soft-porn Playboy video in 2000. Despite all this, nearly "half of Americans would vote him in as president? Then half of Americans are disgusting freaks," the Democratic Coalition Against Trump railed in response. "This whole election misadventure by the GOP is beyond insulting, degrading of our electoral process and infuriating."

Trump was unrepentant about his 3am Twitter rant that led to a whole other line of criticism about the mental state of a candidate who was up at that hour raging about a former beauty queen. "For those few people knocking me for tweeting at three o'clock in the morning, at least you know I will be there, awake, to answer the call!" he bragged.

Then, in an effort to take the high road and present herself as a contrast to Trump, Hillary Clinton too tweeted after 3am the next day – about policy. "It's 3:20am. As good a time as any to tweet about national service," Clinton jibed on Twitter in the wee hours of Saturday, in a series of messages about public volunteerism and college loans.

"Remember, don't believe the haters who describe America as hopeless and broken. We should lift each other up, not tear each other down," she tweeted.


Meanwhile, the ones who should really be having sleepless nights – the American electorate – have already begun early voting in some states some five weeks before Election Day on November 8.

Early voting typically favors the party with better ground organization, and the Democratic Party is seen to have a big advantage here given the GOP's reluctant backing of Trump, rendered even more dodgy because of his erratic personality.

The latest polls show Clinton starting to regain the lead after she was in a deadheat with Trump on the eve of the first debate . Trump's missteps, including boasting about how skirting paying taxes made him smart, is believe to be costing him the support of many undecided voters.

Real Clear Politics poll of polls now show Hillary Clinton nearly three points ahead – and that was before Trump's 3am troubles.