Every news source, every poll states that the forthcoming presidential election is too close to call.  I find this hard to believe.  The gap between the candidates seems too large for that.  Let’s take a look at the differences.

     As many of Harris’s ads say, “Vote for the prosecutor, not the felon.”  But that seems immaterial for many voters.  What about the candidates’ policy differences?  Harris wants tax credits for working-class and middle-class citizens.  Child care allowances, $20,000 for first-time home buyers, help for start-up businesses, etc.  Trump wants to cut taxes again for the wealthy, as he did in his first term and also wants to impose steep tariffs.  This would raise prices a great deal for poorer people.  Harris repeatedly speaks about protecting and expanding access to reproductive health care –- not just for abortions, but for IVF and contraception as well.  She wants such decisions to be between women and their doctors without the interference of politicians, who are usually male.  Trump argues “Let the states decide,” ignoring the fact that many of the states, most of them in the South, have made abortions impossible to obtain, even for abused children pregnant at 12.  Female deaths have risen in these states and doctors have left.  This burden falls primarily on poor and black women who cannot travel to distant states to obtain the health care they deserve.  In every instance where states, a number of them red like Kentucky and Kansas, have voted about abortion they have overwhelmingly decided in its favor.

     What about guns?  Harris, who owns a gun, wants to promote sensible gun laws, like those that check the buyers’ backgrounds.  Trump supports guns “everywhere.”  Harris wants to tackle the climate crisis and join with other nations to do so.  Trump acts as if it doesn’t exist.  He also has scorned international groups, like NATO.  On medical and hospital costs, Harris wants to cap prescription drug payments at $2000 for everyone.  Trump wants to end Obama’s popular American Care Act and has no solution to replace it –- just the “concept of a plan” as he stated in their sole debate.  Harris is open to further debates, Trump has refused them and even did not agree to appear on “Sixty Minutes” as every previous presidential candidate has done.

     So the issue is not their disagreements.  I think David Sedaris put it best, if vulgarly.  You’re on an airplane and you’re asked which meal you’d like: chicken with mashed potatoes or shit with ground glass in it?  With regard to those who want to know more about Harris, a friend said it’s like asking “Is there butter on the mashed potatoes?

     The basic issue, I think, is a subject that the founding father, James Madison, raised in 1788.  He declared, “I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select” politicians “of virtue and wisdom.”  “Is there no virtue among us?” he continued, then “no form of government can render us secure.” 

     Perhaps optimistically, I believe there is still virtue and wisdom in the people.  Wisdom to see through fake news and misinformation.  Virtue to choose better over worse, for themselves and others.  More to the point, perhaps, I think the polls are and have been incorrect.  Remember the “big red wave” that was supposed to happen only two years ago?  I vividly remember the Barry Blitt New Yorker cover of an elephant standing on a surf board that has run aground.  In 2016, all the polls presented Hilary Clinton as the major victor and we know how that turned out.  I think young people are going to be important voters in this election.  Young people, and many others, do not answer their phones if they don’t know whose calling them and so are not polled.

     Finally, Trump continues to run traditionally, speaking at rallies largely composed of his base.  Even there, he goes on so long that many leave and a lot of his speeches don’t make sense, even to the converted.  I, and many others, think he’s going into Alzheimer’s.

     In contrast, Harris is speaking to unconventional venues, especially those that appeal to young people, Blacks, and Hispanics.  She went on Call Her Daddy, the Howard Stern show, Steven Colbert, and numerous small radio stations aimed at Black and Hispanic audiences. 

     All this leads me to believe that she still can win big.  I look forward to a Democratic trifecta of the presidency, the House, and the Senate.  Meanwhile, I and many others are donating money and writing letters and postcards to ensure that happens.  Together, we can make it so.

Donald Trump could not resist slamming the 76-year-old civil rights hero, John Lewis, for refusing to attend his inauguration because the election had been contaminated by Russian influence.  Instead of letting it go, Trump, in a typical narcissistic tweet, told Lewis to see to his own congressional district since it was in terrible shape.  Lewis represents downtown Atlanta, a thriving prosperous area.

In these times, I take heart from Ernestine Rose, who although she lived a hundred years ago, expressed all the values Trump denigrates.  For one instance, in an era far more racist than our own, she continued to speak out not only against slavery, but for the controversial topic of integration -- which hardly any white Americans did at the time.  In 1862, at an Anti-Slavery Convention, she not only praised abolition, she said that she would contribute funds for the publication of the black antislavery activist William Wells Brown's recent speech so that "it could be laid on the desk of the Members of Congress, and others, who may still be troubled with the absurd idea that slaves, if set free, cannot take care of themselves."

That's the America I honor and identify with.