2016 June 3^rd

Secretary Clinton gave a well-received foreign policy speech last night; although it was not well received everywhere. Her thesis was a point-by-point recitation of Donald Trump’s foreign policy comments from his suggestion that Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan be left to develop their own nuclear weapons to his praise for dictators Putin and Kim Jon-Il. For the most part Clinton simply recited Trump’s positions without comment. The result was to provide an unanswerable indictment of Donald J. Trump’s lack of foreign policy chops.

Never mind, Trump would answer Clinton anyway: He gave it his best shot but he would have been much better off if he had ignored Clinton and just thanked Speaker Ryan for his endorsement, weak though that was. Trump’s performance in criticizing Clinton was truly pathetic. He screamed that Clinton’s talk was an attack on him and not a foreign policy speech at all. This was one upset Donald Trump and a large part of his upset must have been his recognition that everything Clinton claimed he said were words that he did say. He denied no specific position that Clinton had referenced, he couldn’t and that made him all the more furious to the point of near incoherence.

If this is an example of what’s to come it will be a very unpleasant summer for Donald J. Trump and his newly acquired lukewarm buddies of the conservative persuasion.

Trump has some other problems: He has surrogates but these tend to be paid people who are immediately distinguishable by their continuing reference to him as “Mr. Trump.” Anyone calling Trump “Mr. Trump” is on his payroll and is paid for their support.

Clinton has a near 25-year history in national politics and that doesn’t count her involvement in Arkansas politics when her husband was governor. Trump doesn’t have that many months in national politics. The result is that Clinton can call on many surrogates for support while Trump has very few. Bill Richardson, former Democratic Governor of New Mexico and a prominent Latino is now a Clinton supporter, perhaps even a V.P. pick. Susana Martinez, the current Republican governor of New Mexico, was recently insulted by Donald J. Trump (He was just hitting back at her effrontery of for not attending one of his rallies.) So while Richardson was not initially a Clinton supporter he has been converted; and while the current Governor Susana Martinez might have been pulled into the Trump camp if he had “played nice” she is now a very unlikely Trump supporter.

Left alone Trump is on his way toward alienating everyone whose salary he doesn’t pay.