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.

Like many Democrats, I was deeply depressed after President Biden’s debate with Donald Trump on June 26.  It did not seem like a “bad night,” as the president said, but rather a steep cognitive decline connected to his age.  I wrote him the following letter:

Dear Pres. Biden,  

     I voted for you in 2020 and have been sending you $25 a month for the last year.  But I now think you should not run for a second term.  You've done an excellent job.  But I'm old now myself (81, like you) and I know how age has diminished me.  I'm a retired history professor from the City University of New York.
     Your performance at the debate scared me.  To me there is no worse fate for the nation than Trump becoming president again.  And, despite all his lies, he won the debate.  Sadly, I don't think that's the only time you're going to be incoherent like that.   I'm sure you want to run again.  But please balance that desire (and ego) against the good of a nation you have served so well. 

I, and many others, were extremely pleased when he decided not to continue to seek a second term three weeks later.  Despite what I said in my letter to him, I was delighted that he endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris, to succeed him.

     In 2020, I did not care for Harris.  I found her very smart, but she possessed no charisma.  She reminded me of Hilary Clinton, whom I supported but did not work for.  I was pleased Biden selected Harris as his vice president, but more because she was a black woman and had been a state district attorney and U.S. senator than for her personality.

     But that has changed.  I think she has grown tremendously during her years in office.  She’s learned how to speak very effectively.  She’s now known for her laugh, for her quick wit, and for her ability to charm a crowd.  I was delighted that the Democratic Party rapidly united behind her on August 6th and even more pleased when she chose the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as her running mate.

     I’d never heard of Walz until then.  I was hoping she wouldn’t pick Josh Shapiro, both because I thought he needed to remain governor of Pennsylvania, a swing state, and because I didn’t think a ticket of a black woman and a Jewish man could win.  But Walz is a terrific choice!  He’s a veteran, a coach, a family man and has supported causes like gay groups in the schools, IVF, which he and his wife, also a teacher, used to create their two children, and also supplied menstrual products to high school bathrooms.  And it was he who coined the successful and accurate term “weird” to describe their Republican opponents.

     There’s a joke going around that the most successful item the Democrats possess is J.D. Vance.  Unlike Harris and Walz, he and Donald Trump have been unremittingly negative and nasty.  Vance’s disparagement of “childless cat ladies” plus his subsequent “correction” that he “had nothing against cats” has gone viral.  Trump’s attack on Harris for “starting out Indian” and then “going Black” has done the same.  Suddenly now, Trump is the old candidate –- some have taken to spelling his first name “D-o-n-o-l-d” –-and he is making increasing numbers of errors in his few speeches.  In contrast, Harris and Walz are speaking daily to larger and larger crowds.  They’ve declared they plan to continue doing this and that they “can rest when they’re dead.”  Trump has been forced into at least one debate against Harris after she called him a coward for declining to debate her when he had eagerly fought for another debate with Biden.  I think she will cream him.  As will Walz against Vance. 

     At this point, the Republicans are offering a dark and scary vision of America.  They are trying to avoid the subject of abortion, the fascism of Project 2025, and the increased jobs, infrastructure, and international support created by the Biden administration.  In contrast, Harris provides a hopeful and generous vision based on these genuine accomplishments.  She is completely comfortable advocating abortion –- much more so than Biden, who could barely speak the word.  I think the issue of abortion alone is going tilt voters towards the Democrats.  Her laugh and sense of humor, which Trump has attempted to denigrate, are winning.  When has Trump ever laughed?  The best he can manage is a smirk.

     So hooray for these developments.  I haven’t felt this hopeful since Obama ran in ’08.  May this campaign have the same successful result!