When you look past the diehards on both sides the mushy middle may have looked at it as crude vs criminal.
“the crook or the ego”
Not just the mushy middle. That’s a pretty good (though oversimplified) description of how I looked at it, too.
I’ll take crude over criminal any day. I’ll vote for almost anyone before I’ll vote for a corrupt, bribe-taking, pay-for-play, treasonous criminal.
Trump may be a little more crude than I’d like, but prefer substance over style in a leader.