At the beginning of the Republican primaries, GOP officials and pundits trumpeted what a deep and diverse field of candidates they were putting up. They crowed that their candidates were accomplished, from many different backgrounds and ethnically (!) diverse.
In fact, it was a terribly weak group of mediocre politicians (and Mr. Trump) with little to offer other than standard Republican talking points. The few actual possibilities, like Governor Kasich or Governor Gilmore, were never going to break out of that crowded clown car because Donald Trump's antics sucked up all the attention. After all, would you like to watch a cat fight or listen to an 8-point economic plan? The raucousness of those primaries meant that issues were ignored in favor of the spectacle of the week to week spitting contests.
In any event, none of those candidates could really distinguish themselves anyway since their policies were all merely variations of the traditional Republican talking points: cut taxes and spending except for the military, repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood and so forth. So the primary voters, who tend to be each party's hard-core base, went with the extremely loud but totally unqualified Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton had been serving our country for years, building a national organization and solid fund-raising base and working with the Democratic Party to advance some progressive ideas. She was clearly poised to be a very strong candidate. While Senator Sanders' campaign gave her some competition, he was never going to defeat her. What he really did was promote more progressive programs and pull Secretary Clinton more to the left. Earlier on, I supported his insurgency candidacy but as the primaries came to a close, it was obvious that she was going to win the nomination. As a lifelong Democrat, I knew that I'd be voting a straight ticket, anyway.
So, this is really just a long-winded way of agreeing with you, MichiganVote. Hillary Clinton would have trounced any one of those clowns from the Republican "deep bench."
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