RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hillary Clinton continues to gain ground against her presidential rivals in key polls. Surveys released this week show Clinton regaining the lead in New Hampshire, dominating in Iowa, and opening a two-to-one national lead over her closest rival, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

A strong showing at the Democratic debate, vice president Joe Biden’s decision not to challenge her for the presidency, and her performance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi have all contributed to a spike in Clinton’s poll numbers over the last three weeks. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday shows her earning 62 percent support among likely Democratic primary voters to Sanders’s 31 percent. It’s a four-point increase from the lead she held in mid-October, when she had 58 percent support to Sanders’s 33.

A Monmouth poll also released Tuesday gives Clinton 48 percent support in New Hampshire to Sanders’s 45 percent — a razor-thin lead, but the first time in months she’s come out on top in a state next-door to Sanders’ native Vermont. If it holds, it would be a body blow to the Sanders campaign, which has led Clinton in the Granite State since late August.

Trump, Clinton, and VA Reform Hillary is in denial about the VA’s problems; Trump at least has a plan.

If you want to know how far out of touch Democrats have become, consider that Donald Trump is starting to make more sense on VA reform than Hillary Clinton.

Faced with the ongoing scandal of veterans’ health care, Hillary’s instinctive reaction was to defend the government bureaucracy. Appearing on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, Hillary dismissed problems with the troubled agency, declaring they have “not been as widespread as it has been made out to be.” Criticism of the VA, she maintained, was just part of the Republicans’ “ideological agenda.” In Hillaryworld, it is simply inconceivable that a government program could fail.

Hillary’s comments came just weeks after a new report from the VA’s own inspector general revealed that, if anything, the department’s problems have actually grown worse since they were first uncovered in 2010.

According to the IG, there was a backlog of some 560,000 veterans waiting for their applications to be processed as of September 2014. Another 307,000 were still on the list, though they had died while their applications were pending. That sounds pretty widespread to me.

Politics is a breeding ground for martial metaphors, starting with the word “campaign” itself. Politicians “under fire” “take flak” as their consultants sit in “war rooms” and launch ad “blitzes” in “targeted districts” and “battleground states” to put their clients “over the top” — with the help of their “troops” in the field. When that doesn’t work, the generals sometimes resort to some dreaded “nuclear option.” Even if it succeeds, the pundits often declare it a “Pyrrhic victory.”

Most of us don’t even realize we’re using bellicose language. For instance, I’d guess most people think “over the top” is a term from football, not a reference to First World War trench warfare.

Still, there’s a reason politics lends itself to such language. Watching Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio emerge from the pack after last week’s CNBC debate, I was reminded of my favorite character from Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

“The strongest of all warriors,” Field Marshal Kutuzov explains, “are these two: Time and Patience.”

Of all the presidential aspirants who are at present scrabbling their way up the White House wall, Donald Trump is by far and away the best, the classiest, and the most handsome. He doesn’t pander or kowtow to the special interests. He doesn’t back down or apologize. He doesn’t sweat, or even drink water. Instead, he makes great deals and knows the smartest people. He writes fabulous books and anchors top-rated TV shows. He makes great gobs of hard cash, sleeps on nothing less than the finest sheets, and imports only the most beautiful women to join him under them. He’s richer than Solomon, more elegant than Jackie O, and he has the hair of an exquisite racehorse. (Not Secretariat.) He wins each and every debate with ease and style. Everybody agrees with him, and they tell him so: publicly, privately, and via the most superb online polls. All ethnic groups love him in equal measure, and females up and down the land yearn for his protective hands. He’s number one; a winner; the tops.

What’s that? Ben Carson is now leading the Republican pack, beating Trump by six points nationally? And Carson is ascendant in more than one poll?