British Labour's 1983 manifesto was dismissed by one of its own as "the longest suicide note in history". That inglorious accolade should now pass by rights to the US Republican Party which has laboured so long and hard to produce a candidate for the presidency in Donald Trump who is not only terminally unelectable but may deal a death blow to both Republican control of Congress and the party's long-term prospects. These coat-tails few candidates will be clinging to.
The elevation of Trump to the status of "presumptive candidate" and the retirement – courtesy of the people of Indiana – of Senator Ted Cruz is, as the New York Times warns, "a moment of reckoning for the Republican Party".
Its leaders face the deeply uncomfortable challenge of “talking themselves into” supporting a candidate they have repeatedly derided, while beginning to contemplate how their party, apparently irredeemably in the grip of conservative populism and evangelical forces remote from middle America, can reclaim the mantle of a party of national government.
For Trump, no less than his party, the big challenge starts now. The hard part. Polls show that matched against an unpopular Hillary Clinton he trails by at least 10 points.
And this is a candidate that the public has got to know already, unlikely to benefit from sudden swings in the general election. Crucially, the voter anger that he marshalled in the Republican race is simply not there in the broader electorate, a majority of whom express themselves content with President Obama.
More than half that broader electorate views him “very unfavourably” – two thirds of voters – or say they are “scared” of him. He even trails in the conservative state of Utah where Democrats have never got more than a third of the vote in the last 11 presidential elections. He is consistently being beaten in the polls of the young, ethnic communities, the well-educated, and women.
We may now see a rebranding exercise – and a new, softer, more friendly Trump. But this used car salesman will remain unmistakably a used car salesman – even in a new suit.