Clinton imagines Trump as prez — and not in a good way

Hillary Clinton, in what was likely her final visit to Southern Nevada before the Tuesday election, told supporters that she endeavored to be a candidate who gives people someone to vote for, rather than simply collecting votes from people voting against her rival.

At which point she asked her audience to imagine how truly horrible a Donald Trump presidency might be by conjuring a comprehensive laundry basket of deplorables that omitted only the angel’s trumpet, bowls of wrath and four horsemen.

Trump demeans women, mocks the disabled, promises to round up immigrants (technically, criminal illegal immigrants), criticizes an American judge because of his Mexican heritage, speaks of black people leading lives exclusively of poverty and despair, intends to ban Muslims from the United States, thinks wages are too high, once fought union organization at his Las Vegas hotel, stiffs contractors on his projects, says hotheaded things about war and foreign policy, insults a Gold Star family and won’t even say whether he’ll accept the results of the election.

And they say Clinton doesn’t have the stamina to be president.

“As you talk to people and urge them to come out to vote, remind them of what’s at stake,” Clinton said. “Everything.”

Surely, this was not the speech Clinton wanted to give this late in the race, especially in a state in which she ought to be comfortably ahead such as Nevada. (As of Wednesday, Democrats were leading Republicans in early and mail-in voting by a margin of 42 percent to nearly 37 percent, a difference in real votes of more than 33,000 out of more than 622,000 cast, according to the secretary of state’s office.)

But things are tightening up, locally and nationally. A race that held Clinton comfortably ahead has begun to narrow. So Clinton has scrapped a “don’t stop thinking about tomorrow” closing speech in favor of the very thing she said she didn’t want: a campaign highlighting the relative evils of her foe.

There are worse things, of course. Clinton is correct in many, if not most, of her deprecating remarks about Trump and his personal and political style. You can almost hear the frustration and amazement in her voice when she even mouths aloud the possibility that Trump could still win the White House if enough Clinton voters fail to show up to the polls. No wonder she’s heading to friendly states and asking friendly audiences to reach out to their friends and family and get every single eligible voter to the polls.

You can almost see her trying to take a baseball bat to the notion that if Trump were to be entrusted with the White House, the awesome responsibility of the office would somehow transform him from a selfish, narcissistic blowhard to a humble, shrewd statesman. (To be sure, many of Trump’s most ardent supporters would consider such a transformation to be a bad thing.)

And it’s not just Clinton courting the Silver State late in the game. Trump announced Wednesday he’d be in Reno on Saturday for a visit to Nevada’s critical swing county (Republicans outnumber Democrats there only by slightly more than 3,600 voters). And his son, Donald Trump Jr., visited Las Vegas on Thursday for a quick speech at Ahern Manufacturing.

Trump doesn’t need the White House, his son said in remarks. He wants it because he loves the American dream.

Odd, isn’t it, how so many American dreams of aspiring to greater heights end up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Four more days to go, folks. Today’s the last day to early vote, so do so now, or do it on Tuesday.

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.