It’s incredibly exciting to see how many hundreds of thousands of Americans are lining up to cast early ballots and how many hundreds of thousands more are mailing and delivery ballots to their polling places in advance of the November 3 General Election.
That’s the good news about the impending presidential and General Election. There’s other good news – some candidates are running issue-oriented campaigns and refusing to sling mud. Democrat Jaime Harrison, who is challenging Republican Lindsay Graham for his Senate seat in South Carolina, is one such candidate.
Two others, Republican Spencer Cox and Democrat Chris Peterson, both running for governor of Utah, appeared in a campaign ad together this week. Here is some of what they had to say.
"We can debate issues without degrading each other's character," said Peterson. "We can disagree without hating each other," Cox said. "And win or lose, in Utah we work together," said Peterson. "So, let's show the country there's a better way," Cox said.
Wow.
Compare that to the frenetic, insult-laced lunacy of President Trump’s increasingly desperate campaign rallies where basic COVID-19 safety precautions are disregarded and people are whipped into a frenzy while the president pleads for suburban women to “please like me.”
The sound bites are horrible, the video clips are hard to stomach. Even reading the words is difficult. The president claimed a microphone malfunction at a rally in Pennsylvania was Hillary Clinton’s fault and prompted the crowd to chant “Lock her up.” The president exhorts the attorney general to investigate Joe Biden, the same political rival, he urged the Ukrainian government to investigate, leading to Trump’s impeachment. The president suggested he’d fire Florida governor Ron DeSantis if he didn’t deliver the state in the president’s column.
This is not normal. We shouldn’t accept it as any kind of new normal. It’s aberrant behavior.
These final days of the campaign call to mind Shakespeare’s Macbeth as he contemplates his life and fate after Lady Macbeth’s death.
“Out, out brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player. That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
November 3 can’t arrive soon enough.
