Some Presidential Campaign/Election Thoughts

Let's see, come tomorrow it will be only four weeks until our country collectively chooses its next president.  It's either going to be Republican nominee Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton who walks away with the victory...you're welcome to vote instead for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, but by doing so you are by default voting for the main candidate you'd least like to see in there.  It's the same if you decide to sit out the election because you dislike them both.  So let's just consider Trump and Clinton...and my attitude about this election and the next president, whoever that might be...

I have been assiduously avoiding the presidential debates, the second of which took place last night.  Fortunately, I had an exciting baseball playoff game to watch, not to mention a great jigsaw puzzle to put together.  But today I slipped into my old channel-surfing habits, inevitably ending up on the cable news & opinion channels.  And, of course they were all abuzz about the debate, the new polls, and what it all meant...complete with the usual tedious gang of spin artists from each party.  I had little or no use for what was said other than a couple of items, both relating to Donald Trump.  The first concerned his base of support: many of those supporting Trump say that they don't always agree with him, but they like him because he says what he means.  And yet when the Donald goes over the line in his tweets and interviews, the same people turn around and make excuses for him, holding that he didn't really mean what he said.  So let me see if I understand: Trump says what he means, and he doesn't mean what he says.  Sure.

The other item of interest I derived from watching TV this morning is how much Trump and his vice-presidential running mate Mike Pence differ on foreign policy.  It was noted that Pence, who is very conservative in both domestic and foreign policy, was much closer to Hillary Clinton with his concern about the aggressive behavior of Russia in the Middle East and East Europe, as dictated by its autocratic ruler Vladimir Putin.  But Trump's all chummy about Putin and wants to let Russia and its Syrian client regime of Assad do as they want in that country...not to mention threatening to refuse to defend fellow NATO countries against attack by Putin's Russia.  That, to me, is a dangerous path to go down, but Trump just came out and openly acknowledged his complete disagreement with his own running mate's more cautionary view.  As for Hillary Clinton, I'm not...as I have repeatedly said...a big fan of hers, but I do think she will do a better job as president.  But you may think otherwise and that's all right, too.  Let's all make our own decisions about the vote and see how it turns out.   Now regarding whoever ends up winning the election on November 8, when he or she is inaugurated next January that person will be MY president, and consequently I will find myself torn between standing in opposition to poor decisions they make and standing behind them in the greater interests of my country and its people.  I'll feel that way whether Trump or Clinton gets in, but I suspect I'll be more torn if the former wins...