For months and months, the media has been obsessed with the fractious, improbable Republican presidential campaign, a wild affair starring Mr. Donald Trump.
And no wonder. It is a hell of a story. A mogul and reality TV guy with no political experience and apparently little interest in the nuances of public policy, his chances repeatedly dismissed by all the elites and experts and pundits, has methodically dispatched 16, count 'em 16, rivals, many of them thought to be rising stars in the GOP.
So now we have the prospect of a neophyte with a penchant for inflammatory bombast, ever-morphing positions and truth-challenged declarations as the standard-bearer for one of our two major parties. Despite the sad foundering of what's left of the #nevertrump movement, as ineffectual a group as there is this side of the Philadelphia 76ers, this deal is done.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, we have a spirited contest still in progress, no matter Hillary Clinton's prohibitive delegate lead and no matter how devoutly Clinton and her supporters wish Bernie Sanders would go away. The media should be paying close attention.
This week Sanders defeated Clinton in Oregon and apparently lost narrowly to the former secretary of State in Kentucky, long a stronghold of the Clinton family. Last week he trounced her in West Virginia. The Vermont socialist has now won 21 primaries. And while it's hard to see how he piles up enough delegates to secure the nomination, unlike Trump's last foes, he clearly plans to keep running through the Democratic convention in July. Sanders made that abundantly clear in his Tuesday night speech.
All of which complicates life immensely for Clinton. She'd love to "pivot," as we like to say Inside the Beltway, and turn her full attention to Trump. But Sanders is keeping the pressure on, with continuing attacks which no doubt will be fodder for the Trump campaign during the general election.
What's more alarming for the Democrats, or should be, is the increasingly nasty tone of the battle. At last weekend's convention in Nevada, where Clinton prevailed, Sanders supporters protested that they had been treated unfairly by party officials. A melee ensued, and state Democratic chairman Roberta Lange was pelted with a torrent of death threats and seriously vicious emails.
Sanders deplored the violence in a statement that also assailed the behavior of the Democratic officials and said his campaign, too, had been the target of violence. This prompted Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to say Sanders' statement was inadequate and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to assert that it was important for Sanders to speak out personally against his supporters' ugly behavior.
Reid is right. Just as it's incumbent on Trump to speak out against the spasms of violence that have plagued some of his rallies, Sanders needs to make clear there is no place for chair throwing and death threats, no matter how unhappy you are about the proceedings.
The unpleasantness has raised the specter of unrest and chaos in Philadelphia during the Democratic convention this summer. Philadelphia Daily News columnist Will Bunch this week wrote a piece titled, "Will Philly (not Cleveland) be the crazy convention?"
The hardening of feelings could have serious consequences. So much attention has been paid to the question of whether the Republican Party will be irrevocably split by Trump's triumph, harming his chances of gaining access to the White House. But, with the exception of what Bruce Willis would call a few stragglers, the GOP appears to be rallying around The Donald, never mind all the dark declarations back in the day that nominating him would be the end of Western Civilization as we know it.
But if the forces of Bernie don't rally to Hillary's side, that could doom her candidacy. Can you say President Trump?
All of which is a very big story and one that needs to be center stage. Sure, it's great that The New York Times and The Washington Post are doing deep dives about Trump and women and the mogul's propensity for posing as his own PR man (who hasn't done that?). He needs all the scrutiny he can get, But at the same time, let's not lose sight of the fact that we still have one very lively.primary in progress. We sometimes do. Watching too much politics on TV last weekend, I wondered at one point if Sanders had dropped out of the race.
As for Trump, was there ever a bigger anticlimax than his long-awaited interview Tuesday night with Fox News' Megyn Kelly? Kelly, you'll recall, angered Trump during the first GOP debate in what now seems like the '90s with a question about his penchant for using insulting terms about women. Thus ensued the Feud of the Century.
But on her Tuesday night special on Fox Broadcasting, Trump vs. Kelly was hardly a showdown. More like a love fest. The entire show was a soft-focus affair designed to fuel Kelly's apparent determination to morph from tough interrogator into the Barbara Walters of her generation. The one-on-one with Trump generated neither heat for light.
Kelly's question that triggered the imbroglio was a perfectly legitimate one. Tuesday night's rapprochement was deeply disappointing.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Rem Rieder on Twitter @remrieder
