What if Trump were Clinton?

Bill Clinton, that is, whose defenders, upon hearing reports that he had been unfaithful to Hillary, were quite willing to say, “that’s their private life,” and upon hearing claims of rape, said, “those women aren’t credible.”

And who garnered this support both because he was on the right side, ideologically, and because he proved to be competent in his governance.

Trump already had two strikes against him:  the shakiness of his professed “Republican” beliefs (a convenient conversion to the pro-life cause, a commitment to immigration enforcement that may or may not be genuine), and the general nonsense that the man repeatedly sputters, including, most recently, a 3 AM tweet-storm that points to the risk of making any number of foolish decisions due to feeling personally aggrieved.

So:  the thought experiment.  What if Trump had been saying all the right things, and had a good track record of effective governance, or at least a public record that gave everyone reason to believe that he would be likely, in the future, to govern effectively, so that the election, up until October, had been a “normal election” of two candidates with different policy platforms?  What if the new accusations — ranging from lewd behavior to sexual assault (has there been a rape claim yet?) — don’t just compound the degree to which the candidate is unsavory, but are the first such negative blows?  I said “what if Trump were Clinton,” above, but, for the purpose of our thought experiement, what if Trump were Romney, with a Bill Cosby-like past emerging for a man otherwise believed to be squeaky-clean and, more importantly, competent and likely to govern well?

What degree of misconduct would be severe enough to lose your support, even at a cost of the opponent winning and being able to implement policies with which you strongly disagree?

Let’s assume that it’s something sort of the candidate standing on the street shooting passers-by.  But what is it?  Remember, it’s October, so you can’t make a distinction of whether a claim was or wasn’t proven in a court of law, as the election’s only a month away, so there’s no time to take a claim to court.

Curious for reader thoughts.