In this strangest of modern presidential elections, the Democratic candidate is unable to go more than a day or two without a new revelation of actions that skirted the law, potentially feathered her foundation's nest or showed her to be less than truthful.
Meanwhile, the Republican candidate can't go a similar length of time without uttering an outlandish statement, having a proposal blow up in his face or being nitpicked by a mainstream media slavishly supporting his opponent.
So, as the campaigns enter their final phase, the conventional wisdom is that Democrat Hillary Clinton will ride out a small but comfortable lead in the polls, continue to avoid the press and score a tidy but hardly huge win in November.
Is there anything Republican Donald Trump can do, his supporters are wondering, to avoid the calamity of President Barack Obama's "third term"?
We're no prognosticators, but we believe beating the drum on the lackadaisical economy would be Trump's best offense.
Trump has raft of statistics he should pound home, especially to Midwest states like Ohio and Iowa, Southern states like Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, and Western states like Arizona, Colorado and Nevada:
- The period following the supposed end of the recession in June 2009 has been the slowest recovery since World War II.
- Growth has not topped 3 percent for a full year since 2005, the last seven and a half years under the Obama administration to which Clinton ties herself.
- The economy expanded an anemic 1 percent in the first half of 2016, following a rate of 2.6 percent in 2015.
- The country's average gross domestic product growth between 1947 and 2004 was 3.45 percent. Under the Obama presidency, it's hovered around 1 percent.
- Average job growth between 1948 and 2006 was 1.7 percent. Under Obama, who likes to take credit for saving the economy, it's been .5 percent.
- The labor participation rate is the lowest since the Carter administration.
- Home ownership fell to 62.9 percent in the second quarter of 2016, a decrease from 63.4 percent a year ago, and now equals the rate in 1965, when the government officials began tracking data.
- The average American family brings home slightly less than $54,000 a year, almost exactly the same as 20 years ago (once inflation is taken into account).
- The average student leaves college with a debt of $29,000, $9,000 higher than a decade ago, and 70 percent of students will graduate with debt.
- Income inequality under Obama is the worst of the last six presidents.
- Average federal spending is higher than for any president in the last 40 years.
Most Americans are already familiar with the $19 trillion debt, the highest in history. And some may know about the record deficits, which fell when Republicans forced Obama to accept automatic spending cuts, but now are on the rise again.
Those are cold, hard, government-documented facts. What Trump could capitalize on are the human stories beyond the facts - the husband working below his qualifications, the father working part-time when he'd prefer to work full-time, the wife who lost her job when her company couldn't afford the costs of Obamacare, the mother who stopped looking for work after 18 months when she couldn't find anything fulfilling.
He should keep Clinton on defense of this economy every day. Since she chooses to wrap herself in the administration she served, she should have to explain it.
Trump's stances on immigration are controversial but important. They are a big reason he is where he is today. They brought out previously disinterested voters who were tired of seeing American jobs and financial underpinning go to illegal immigrants. So for him to completely stop talking about immigration would be folly.
But if he wants a shot at the presidency - if that remains a possibility just over two months before citizens cast their ballots - he should remind people of what they already know, what they already feel. Just below the surface of the unemployment numbers, the news is bad and not getting much better.
As a businessman and a job producer, Trump has some "cred" to make those arguments. And although he has a weak opponent, she is ahead and the time is short. It may be his last, best hope.