How does a presidential candidate survive a sex scandal? Look to that lothario who seems to be on everyone’s minds these days: Grover Cleveland.on the presidential campaign trail, which kicked off with the 1884 reporting that Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock.
First was Democrat Cleveland’s particularly weak, gaffe-prone opponent. Second, he benefited from a desperately polarized electorate that was being tempted by third parties to boot. But what really turned things around for Cleveland, Goodyear says, was his meeting “an extraordinary crisis with an extraordinary response”: honesty — or at least the perception thereof.
Trump’s lawyer would have the world believe that the October 2016 revelation of the “Access Hollywood” recording was no big deal, that everyone catches and kills an unflattering story here and there, and that “conspiracy” is just a dudded-up way of saying “teamwork.”Will jurors go for that? Will the rest of the country? That might determine whether Cleveland retains his other notable distinction: the only president to serve nonconsecutive terms.