Double Down in St. Louis

English: This photo depicts Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The self-destruction of Donald Trump's presidential campaign continued Sunday night in St. Louis at the town hall-formatted debate, where the Republican nominee went low so many times against his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton that you'd think he was scraping the bottom of the barrel.  Until you consider that in this campaign, it's more like a bottomless pit.

Having been caught on tape in a 2005 interview with the TV show "Access Hollywood" bantering with interviewer Billy Bush (who has since moved on to NBC's "Today", and who probably won't be back with the show until after the election--if at all) about women in a manner that might be considered sexual assault today, Trump began the debate by "apologizing" for his behavior before quickly changing the subject to how horrible the Islamic State is.

For good measure, Trump even brought in three of the women in Bill Clinton's life who allegedly had extramarital affairs with him to sit in the audience, which had the effect of neutralizing whatever wife Hillary had to say on The Donald's "locker room talk".

Later on, when moderators Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News tried to get Clinton to explain why, in leaked e-mails concerning her paid speeches to Wall Street bankers, she flip-flopped on supporting trade deals, Trump kept interrupting and hovering over her like Frankenstein's monster.  He even acted the part of a real life monster when he claimed that, if elected President, he'd hire a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton's missing e-mails, then throw her in prison.

The actions of a desperate man, weeks away from certain defeat if the latest polls are correct (NBC News and the Wall Street Journal gave Clinton an 11-point lead):  Maximize the hurt caused by belittling everyone who isn't white, straight and male.  Threaten to throw your opponent in jail, as if this were a totalitarian society.  Interrupt and criticize members of the media, accusing them of being biased in favor of your opponent (of course, said members of the media are culpable for letting this happen).

Clinton won the debate, but that hardly matters.  Both candidates feigned interest in the "ordinary folks" used as props that made up the town hall meeting, who sometimes asked better questions than the moderators did.  Neither candidate distinguished themselves outside of mud slinging to win any new friends.

Trump has lost quite a few of his GOP supporters in the past few weeks.  Even more are bailing or at least distancing themselves after the sex tape was released.  And newspapers who have been endorsing Republican presidential candidates since forever are now switching to Clinton.  But Trump says he's in it to win it, ignoring pleas for him to get out of the race.

Hillary Clinton had better hope that Trump stays in the race too.  She leads in the polls, but there's still all those nagging questions about her trustworthiness.  If Trump did get out, the GOP might pick a candidate who's more competent by comparison.  That person might actually win.

Whatever happens to his campaign in the next few weeks, you can bet that both the Democratic and Republican parties will get together after the election to make sure that no one like Donald Trump ever runs for President again.