Tim Swarens

tim.swarens@indystar.com

To describe the Donald Trump for President campaign as the “Crazy Train” is to denigrate the relative stability of Ozzy Osbourne.

To say that it’s led by a 70-year-old adolescent is to slam the maturity of the nation’s middle school students.

How bad is it? Trump made news by continuing his bizarre feud with a Gold Star family; refused to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan, a fellow Republican whose help he would need if elected to the White House; said he “always wanted” a Purple Heart, thereby calling renewed attention to his multiple draft deferments during the Vietnam war; insinuated that the election is rigged; suggested that Americans should pull their retirement funds from the stock market; and triggered yet another unnecessary distraction by seeming to eject a mother and crying baby from a campaign event.

And that was only Tuesday.

It was enough to prompt Ed Rogers, a longtime Republican consultant and a White House staff member in the George H.W. Bush administration, to tweet: “If @realDonaldTrump is going crazy, what is the process/what are the conditions for @GovPenceIN to take over and become the #GOP nominee?”

I am 93 percent — maybe 89 percent — certain that won’t happen. It’s too “House of Cards” even for this election cycle. But what does it say about the state of the campaign two weeks after the GOP’s national convention that even a loyal Republican felt the need to ask such a question?

Here’s another to contemplate: Is Trump trying to lose in November?

If not, he certainly has a strange notion of how to win. Insulting military families, flopping from one personal squabble to another and dividing your own party less than 100 days from the election is not a formula for success. Even in Trump World.

And all of Trump’s stuff has stuck to the fan in what should have been a not-so-good week for Hillary Clinton.

On Sunday, The Washington Post awarded Clinton four Pinocchios for her claim on Fox News that the FBI director said she told the truth about her handling of classified information on a private email server. “Clinton is cherry-picking statements by (James) Comey to preserve her narrative about the unusual setup of a private email server,” Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote. “This allows her to skate past the more disturbing findings of the FBI investigation.”

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the current economic recovery is the weakest since 1949. And Wednesday, the Journal revealed that the Obama administration “secretly organized an airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran that coincided with the January release of four Americans detained in Tehran.”

In any normal election year, those would be damaging headlines for a candidate whose reputation for dishonesty haunts her and who is essentially promising to fill Barack Obama’s third term. But Trump’s inability to control his message and his mouth continue to give Clinton a pass.

The only semi-positive news to emerge from the Trump camp in recent days has been the relative maturity shown by vice presidential nominee Mike Pence.

On Monday, at an event in Nevada, a mother whose son serves in the Air Force was booed after she questioned Pence about how he can continue to support Trump in light of his running mate’s repeated insults of the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, killed in Iraq in 2004.

“Folks, that’s what freedom looks like, and that’s what freedom sounds like,” Indiana’s governor told the crowd of Trump supporters in defense of the mother.

He added: “Captain Khan is an American hero, and we honor him and honor his family as we do all Gold Star families.”

It was a rare moment of good grace in this election cycle. Pence took what could have been another ugly moment and turned it into an opportunity for unity and understanding.

Still, I’m hesitant to give Pence much credit for what should be common courtesy. It’s like congratulating yourself for holding the door for an 80-year-old with a walker. Don’t expect a medal; do it because that’s what decent people do.

Unless, of course, you’re Donald Trump. Then you sink into a worse than pointless argument with the still-grieving parents of a man who gave his life for his country.

Perhaps Trump really is trying to win this election. Perhaps he really does have, as his supporters claim, a grand plan. But for now, to call the Trump campaign a train wreck is to insult the hardworking men and women who run the nation’s railroads.

Contact Swarens at tim.swarens@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @tswarens.

Swarens: Clinton vs. Trump. Sorry, America