Trump tries transparency defense for selling access 

Twenty-five years ago, George W. Bush, the governor of Texas, barely defeated the sitting vice president, Al Gore, in what remains the narrowest victory in presidential history: fewer than 1,000 votes in a single state, 48.85 percent to 48.84 percent in Florida. 

There are many ways to explain how the vice president lost to an incumbent with a 60 percent job-approval rating.

Gore was a bad campaigner and almost supernaturally awkward — the kind of person who hires a consultant to teach him how to be an “alpha male.” Bush...