Is this the year neither party can win the election? The two front-runners in each major party seem to suggest that it’s so. The Democrats have the leaden and scandal-plagued Hillary Clinton facing a 74-year-old socialist from a small left-wing state. And should she face legal woes, the fallback positions of the party of youth and diversity are boring old white men past or near 70 who have run losing races before.

Meanwhile, the two leading candidates in the Republican field poll very badly in the general election match-ups, with Donald Trump putting off independents and many Republicans, while Ted Cruz, who set out to make his colleagues dislike him, is finding out now that he did. In a just world all should lose badly, and would if they were not facing each other. But those who helped to make all this happen are not hard to find.