One of the things I find so interesting about this election is the sheer situational distaste projected at both candidates. Granted Donald Trump seems to crave "negative reinforcement" in a crude tweener kind of a way....but it's no joke to assert both nominees are viscerally disliked.
Granted a good chunk of this is pundit fodder, and there is a naturally tendency to fallaciously assume that the opinions on the Op-Ed Pages somehow embody the larger thinking of the electorate.
My point is, that unpopular candidates aren't the exception they are sort of the norm as presidential contests go. I mean look at the succession of presidential elections from 1868 thru 1912 it's a gruesome recitation of second rate men versus third rate men all in a downward race to see who could promise to do LESS as the US President.
This is when those race weren't loaded up with outright weirdos (Horace Greeley...who died of shame a few weeks after losing in 1872) or preposterously corrupt schemers (James G. Blaine I am looking at you Boyo).
In the modern era "Humphrey Versus Nixon" was a close race between two very unpopular candidates as well as "Reagan versus Carter" in 1980 (look at the polling if you don't believe me, Saint Ron was not running away with that one up to that debate)....
To me, the system with it's Newtonian checks and balances seems to mutely assume that for the most part "regression to the mean" even sometimes "regression to the mean spirited" is gonna be the norm in presidential contests.
We have a culture and a system with so many venues and means to persuasion we tend to assume (dangerously so) that those designated are automatically gonna be of a pleasant persuasive disposition.
In everyday life as in politics, this is not always the case.
This does leave us at the doorstep of the "lesser of the two evils" but I think that is just where the Framers of the US Constitution Intended Us to Be and indeed in some sense that is where our liberties are best safeguarded sometimes.
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