After the humiliating defeat of its 2012 presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's formula for winning the White House next year appeared relatively straightforward. It needed to find a candidate with more moderate views and holding a greater appeal to all Americans. If so, the election seemed there for the taking. Only once in the past 60 years has the same party held the presidency for three successive terms. Yet the mess they are making of their challenge has been illustrated yet again by Donald Trump's bumptious hijacking of the British Open women's golf championship.
For the past couple of months, the world has watched the 69-year-old tycoon's campaign in disbelief and disgust. First, he described illegal Mexican immigrants as "rapists". Never mind that Mr Romney's alienation of the Hispanic vote was one of the causes of the collapse in the Republican vote in 2012. Then he declared that the party's 2008 presidential nominee, John McCain, was not a war hero. "I like people who weren't captured," he said.
That remark was offensive on many levels. First, it is nonsense to imply that capture automatically eliminates hero status. New Zealand's most decorated soldier, Charles Upham, the holder of a Victoria Cross and bar, was captured during World War II. Mr McCain was bound to share the same fate when his aircraft was shot down over Hanoi during the Vietnam War. He was tortured during five years of captivity. During that time, Mr Trump was laying the foundations for the fortune he was to make in real estate, having avoided conscription through student deferments, as well as a medical deferment for a bone spur in his foot. The contrast could hardly be more graphic. To say that Mr Trump's comment about Mr McCain, and his refusal to apologise, should disqualify him from ever being the commander-in-chief of America's armed forces is a statement of the obvious.
