Trump expected to hit back at Clintons as he begins hunt for allies

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump is reaching out to the GOP establishment and his erstwhile rivals for the party nomination, Hillary Clinton is wooing Republican malcontents, and the American electorate is bracing itself for a campaigning and advertising assault, as the United States’ multi-billion dollar electoral carnival gathers momentum going into the home stretch.


The Trump vs Clinton match-up has seemed likely for several weeks now notwithstanding the tortuous primaries. Now that it is imminent despite residual inner-party contests in some dozen states, the serious business of lining up allies, supporters, fat cat moneybags, and party faithful has begun.


It is an exercise that involves rolling back a lot of invective and insults. Trump began the process by praising Ted Cruz -- the man he derided as ''Lyin’ Ted,'' -- as a great competitor, and suggesting he was open to having such a ''liar'' as his vice-president. ''Little'' Marco Rubio is also a veep prospect in Big Donald’s eyes. More political and verbal calisthenics are on the cards.


Some who have been worsted will not forget. Presidents 41 and 43, father and son Bush, said they will not endorse the man who many Republicans still see as a boor, and who humiliated a third Bush (Jeb) who could have been president # 45 before Trump trashed him. Spoken of as a possible vice-presidential running mate for Trump, South Carolina’s Indian-American governor Nikki Haley, who has called Trump an ''angry voice,'' and backed Rubio, said she is not interested.


Trump’s prospective rival for the White House, who he has dubbed ''Crooked Hillary,'' has quickly seized on these fissures in the GOP. Her campaign released an ad on Tuesday that catalogued all the insults Trump’s Republican rivals had heaped on him -- from Marco Rubio calling him a ''con artist'' and ''the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the US presidency,'' to Ted Cruz terming him a ''bully'' and Mitt Romney saying he is a ''phony,'' to Lindsey Graham calling him a ''race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot,'' to Jeb Bush saying ''he needs therapy.'' Enough invective there to start an insultopedia.


Another ad is a collage of Trump’s most egregious utterances (in the eyes of moderates and liberals), from his promise to get rid of gun-free zones on schools to a ''total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,'' to saying waterboarding is fine and he is not going to take using a nuclear weapons in Europe off the table, to mocking a reporter with disability, and saying women should be punished for having an abortion, after it becomes illegal again.


''‘President Trump’ is a dangerous proposition. Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio agree,'' Clinton tweeted after the ads were released, telling the world at large in a CNN interview that the presumptive Republican nominee is a loose cannon who cannot be trusted with White House responsibilities.


Trump is also certain to unload on ''Crooked Hillary,'' including by making her husband’s infidelities an issue, raising the prospect of this being the ugliest ever Presidential elections in modern U.S history. Hashtags -- from #NeverTrump to #DropOutHillary -- are being lined up on all sides in this battle.


History is in the making, not just because America will for the first time elect as President either a woman (and a former First Lady) or a real estate mogul and entertainment czar who has never held elected office; also because it features deeply fractured political parties and gender politics like never before.