Pruden: A day to separate the losers

This is the day that divides winners and losers, and it’s fashionable to say it’s about time. But watching the losers of aught-16 do it unto themselves was the best part of the show.

There can be but one winner, but losers abound.

Jeb Bush could be the Theodore White of this election campaign, calling it “The Unmaking of the President,” subtitled “How I Blew $120 Million to Make It to Sixth Place.”

Like all the Bushes, father and sons, Jeb is a nice guy. Leo Durocher, the manager of the old Brooklyn Dodgers, famously put nice guys in a context all their own. “Nice guys!” he said, one day in the summer of 1946, talking with sportswriters before a game with the Dodgers’ hated crosstown rivals, the New York Giants.

“Look over there. Do you know a nicer guy than [Giants Manager] Mel Ott? Or any of the other Giants? Why, they’re the nicest guys in the world. And where are they? In seventh place. Nice guys. I’m not a nice guy — and I’m in first place. The nice guys are all over there, in seventh place.” A headline in the old New York Journal-American put it in the words everybody remembers: “Nice guys finish last.”

Donald Trump is this year’s Leo Durocher.

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