Editorial: Wide gulf between Clinton and Trump

You don’t have to listen for very long to figure out who’s the serious presidential candidate and who isn’t.

Hillary Clinton can be too cautious, dull and defensive. It took her way too long to sit down for national interviews, starting Tuesday with CNN. But at least what she says makes sense and is responsible.

In the CNN interview, she said she has learned a lot on her listening tour and will unveil her plan Monday to grow the economy “faster and fairer.” She also addressed the email scandal and defended the Clinton Foundation. All very reasonable.

Contrast that with Donald Trump.

You can’t get the man to shut up. He apparently doesn’t have a filter between the bizarre thoughts rattling around his brain and what comes out of his mouth.

Instead of a real policy on immigration, he soiled our national conversation with this: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Rather than apologize for those odious comments, he managed to make things worse in a statement Monday: “Tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico.”

“I am proud to say that I know many hardworking Mexicans — many of them are working for and with me,” he added, as if that helps.

He’s a buffoon. No wonder his business partners are running away as fast as they can.

Unfortunately, voters aren’t doing the same, at least not yet. We hope that he’s doing so well in early polls due to name recognition and that as voters begin to actually listen to him, they’ll cast him aside.

Clinton said she’s “very disappointed” in Trump’s remarks and faulted other Republican candidates for not responding more strongly to them.

The danger is that Trump’s reality show campaign will shape the GOP primary, especially if he gets on the debate stage. During the 2016 campaign, we need a serious discussion of the big issues facing our country.

The sooner the Trump sideshow is over, the better.

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 9:48 AM with the headline "Editorial: Wide gulf between Clinton and Trump."