Look, when Woodpecker started reporting here at the Red Barn, this election was projected to be an updated round of the Bush machine countered by the Clintons’ – and all of the unfinished business on both sides. Well, that’s not quite what’s happened, even if the underlying dynamics haven’t evaporated, nor have my concerns about the Republican party finally ripping apart. What no one anticipated the underlying grassroots anger that both Trump and Bernie Sanders tapped into, from quite divergent sides.

Sanders, let there be no mistake, was accurate in his assessment of its causes, unlike Trump and his delusional rants and endless whining.

So here we are in the thick of it, wondering and asking:

When it comes to Trump, why aren’t the crowds chanting: “Lock him up! Lock him up!” Just listen to the violence he’s urging in his speeches and look to his history. What more do you need?

Oh, Melania, how can anyone smear Donald? He does it just opening his mouth.

And now Rudy Giuliani’s saying big city elections are rigged? I’ll take that as a confession about his winning the mayor’s race in New York City – both times. Why not?

While we’re at it, just look at Trump’s other showcase political ally, Chris Christie, whose popularity as governor of New Jersey is totally tanking in the flood of testimony in the Bridgegate scandal. As if we’re surprised.

I’m still puzzled by all of the focus on Hillary’s emails, especially after all the empty witch hunts she’s endured. Anyone who knows anything about negotiating a deal is aware that you can’t put all of your cards on the table from the git-go. You have to have room to maneuver, to test the other side’s intentions and willingness to pay or play. But from what we’ve seen of Trump’s abilities there, we’d have to say they’re nil. He thinks an ultimatum is the only way to go. Take it or leave it? More and more, folks are leaving it.

Wait! Ecuador cut off Julian Assage’s Internet connection?

Ecuador?

How many folks had to look it up on a map?

Speaking of which … Maine Gov. Paul LePage has no room to complain about rigged elections. He owes his own wins to dead bears. Seriously, the rabid end of the electorate was baited. Oh, that was a sordid one based on cruelty to animals.

These things just aren’t letting up.

What about the false witness of so-called Christians who endorse untruth and those whose blatantly un-Christian actions? I’m waiting to see some real repentance there. Please!

Speaking of repentance … how dare John McCain promise that Republicans will oppose any Supreme Court nominee Clinton would present – in effect, abdicating Senate responsibility. We’re facing a Constitutional crisis if they do.

Here in New Hampshire, we’re seeing Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Maggie Hassan accused of failing to accomplish things as governor, with the implication that her Republican rival, incumbent Kelly Ayotte, would advocate them. The reality is that Ayotte’s Republicans opposed the measures in the first place. Rather than take credit for their actions, the GOP politicians blame their victim. Oh, shame! By the way, many of the expensive mailings we’re getting attacking Hassan bear the disclaimer, “not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.” Seems to me rather cowardly, especially coming from out-of-state.

One of the things I’ve come to expect in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary is the surprise incident that erupts with unanticipated force to derail a candidate’s aspirations or propel him to the nomination. It’s something that happens in the day-to-day test of face-to-face encounters. Sometimes it’s a comment that’s overheard or maybe even recorded. You can never predict where or when something that sticks might pop up. This year, alas, Donald Trump pretty much evaded the face-to-face vetting the process presents, choosing instead to fly over it with nothing but slickly packaged large-scale performances. When he did meet “regular folks,” rather than the screened supporters, incidents followed that were troubling, but nothing seemed to stick – look back, though, and the evidence is there. He can’t take criticism, especially from women, as a confrontation at St. Anselm College demonstrated.

Instead, what everybody seemed to overlook as the campaign rolled on is that Trump’s hard-core believers don’t care about facts. Contrary to the slogan, their real motto is Screw Everyone! And you wonder why they seem deaf and blind to reality? Consider a recent survey that found 70 percent of Republicans think Russia is America’s “friend” – an ally or friendly nation. How do you fight that?

Well, you can fire up outrage in selected camps. Forget Trump’s core – nothing will faze them. It’s the independents who need to be swayed.

Think of courageous Khizr Khan and his wife, Ghazala, the Gold Star parents who took the spotlight in late July and defended immigrants, the military, the Constitution, and religious faith against Trump’s bombast. Trump’s attempts to weasel out of their blast clearly revealed how petty, ill-informed, and cruel-hearted he is. Still, that was a while back in the news cycle.

The newly released videotapes, however, essentially confessing his sexual attacks on married women, followed by revelations of his creeper actions around underage teens, hit as the kind of campaign-killing event that should have happened back in the primaries. There’s no hint of mutual consent here, folks. No respect for anyone or anything. He can’t deny he said what’s on tape, and no evidence he’s changed the least in the years since it was made. If anything, there’s a lot more on tap. And this, finally, has struck a public nerve.

And his response? Wild allegations of a “rigged” election! You’ve got to be kidding! Coming from someone who has failed to build anything resembling a national campaign structure, who has failed to prepare for the debates, who has failed to work with the party leaders with the know-how and grassroots connections, he’s blaming everyone but himself for the survey results we’re seeing. As Salon headlined a response: “It’s the Republicans Who Rig Elections, Donald: The GOP Suppression of Black Voters Goes Way Back.” And that’s without getting into the Florida chads of George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign or the Ohio voting machines that lacked verification of results that ran counter to exit survey results in 2004 – both incidents tilting the election to Bush – and we Democrats have every reason to worry about “rigging.” Just where is Karl Rove these days, anyway?

And that’s even before we get into possible interference for Trump’s so-called “poll watchers.” Or should we say the Creeper’s poll watchers?

~*~

All this, of course, came before Trump’s unprecedented boast in last night’s debate that he won’t accept the election results — unless he wins, according to a point he amplified today. Even conservatives are seeing that as the nail in Trump’s coffin.

If this were locker room talk, with his whining, “You cheated! You cheated!,” everyone would be labeling him a sore loser. As I recall, nobody willingly plays again with a sore loser. You’re ostracized from the circle. No, you play by the rules instead. Or else.

Of course, this scene gets compounded when the sore loser has never learned the rules of the game in the first place, never trained, never practiced, never worked up through the ranks, and done nothing but loud trash talk — yet still expects the championship trophy.

There’s another locker room term for that kind of person: rich spoiled brat.

Well, it ain’t over yet. Or is it?

Admittedly, I haven’t posted much about current political events recently, but it’s not for lack of topical material. If anything, Donald Trump has so polluted the race that it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the latest twists in the disgusting torrent he’s become. If anything, it’s hard to maintain a big picture and there’s a danger of becoming numbed by his long list of offenses. Remember, Hillary Clinton is not the cause of anything he’s said or done. He needs to own up to his own decisions, come clean, fly straight, stop hedging with nasty, even violent innuendo.

Quite simply, Trump has yet to accept responsibility for anything he’s said or done. It’s always someone else’s fault. Or makes you “smart,” the way shafting the public with your tax “losses” does in your eyes. He wants us to believe “they all do it,” which gives him permission to do whatever he pleases.

No, Donald, your despicable acts and words against women have nothing to do with Bill Clinton. And, by the way, if you had any grounds for a real lawsuit against the New York Times for airing women’s allegations against you, the former president would be doing the same to you for your television episode with those from his past. You’re the one running for public office (your first and only campaign, by the way), and as the Times notes, it’s your record that needs scrutiny.

By the way, I can’t fault Hillary for what many married women have done in a situation of a wandering spouse – faulting the rival. She defended her turf, apparently unlike your wives. Think about that.

As a bigger issue, your charges of Hillary’s “lies” fails to acknowledge that the majority of what comes out of your mouth is out-and-out false. Or, as the meme says, you can lie faster than anyone can fact-check. Not so, Hillary, who actually has solid facts and detailed policies rather than vapid generalizations.

We can start with your big lie of claiming to be a successful businessman and counter that with your miserable string of bankruptcies, failed enterprises, unpaid contractors, and lawsuits. Have any of your projects not involved loopholes, public subsidies, or political favors? Would you have been in business at all without the family funding? You’ve never had to face the grilling of seasoned board members on a publically traded company, have you? Much less the competition of ambitious challengers climbing the corporate ladder around you. We know you’re too thin-skinned for that – or for building lasting alliances. You would have been torn apart and tossed out, no doubt about it.

Remember, too, we’ve learned that your lawyers always meet with you two at a time, one as a witness for the other when you forget what you’ve told them or claim to have said something counter to what you did, in fact, say. When your own lawyers can’t trust you, what about the rest of the world? Are you nothing but hot air and smoke?

So far, your basic strategy has been to portray Hillary Clinton as, well, a successful woman. And that’s led to a lot of grasping at straws, from Benghazi, which can be blamed far more on Republican cutbacks to State Department security or the George W. Bush role in the creation of ISIS or which fail in comparison to attacks on embassies during W’s or Ronald Reagan’s administrations, to the emails, which are dwarfed by those of W’s administration or the unexplained death of a young secretary who had access to the missing 18 minutes of tapes during Richard Nixon’s Watergate travails. Missing emails? We haven’t even delved into your missing income-taxes, which apparently cover most of your adult years.

And then there are all of the unsubstantiated allegations of the deaths of people close to Hillary and Bill’s work. Look, if there were anything to this, a legion of young Republican prosecutors would have staked their careers on such a challenge. Nobody, but nobody, has turned up anything to go on. In the news business, I learned long ago not to run on anything like this until charges were filed. We couldn’t use the word “murder,” for starters, unless a jury had agreed the case was homicide. Until then, neither should any Republican. If you said these things against a “private person,” your claims would be libelous and cost you, the accuser, plenty. As it is, the “hit list” is simply out-and-out untrue. That is, a lie.

Or, more accurately, a stream of endless lies.

By the way, regarding those Clinton colleagues, we might also look at the depressing nature of much of what we’ve been facing, especially from the right-wing, and the impact of long demands on what might otherwise be personal time – that is, relationships and friendships – in the face of a high-pressure career. For anyone of an idealistic bent, suicide begins to look like a preferable option to all of the lunatic bombast.

As for the Clinton Foundation? It’s squeaky clean next to the Trump setup. Nobody I’ve heard has found donor money going to the Clintons, while quite the opposite is true of you, Donald. Just what has your “foundation” done for other people, anyway?

By the way, donations to Trump’s campaign seem to be paying him a salary! And that’s even before getting to the inflated prices being paid by donors to his various enterprises, including real estate. Has any previous presidential nominee run to so enrich himself, win or lose?