17 October—Joe Biden was able to get himself elected in 2020 in large part by limiting his public appearances and interviews. Kamala Harris could have tried it. But, that said, she handled herself quite well last night in her go-around with Fox News scrapper Bret Baier in his hostile home ring. It’s encouraging for her presidential campaign and the forces of good (no, they’re not one and the same) to report that Kamala gave as well as she got.

Realistically, however, Kamala didn’t—and certainly couldn’t have been expecting to—gain any votes from Fox’s immutable cadre of hard-core Trumpers, right-wing zealots, and other mindless and gullible troglodytes. But since she didn’t take any crap from Baier, it’s not unlikely that ad hoc Fox watchers were impressed and will either stick with her or—better yet—determine to vote for her rather than Trump.

(Obiter dictum: Oy vay, what a choice!)

While it’s clearly against his gross grain, Trump might, in order to win the support of the less-unintelligent segment of voters, consider keeping his own mendacious mouth shut for a change. Yeah, we know it’s not easy. No matter what he says or how he says it, of course, America’s most celebrated con man can count on the fervid support of crazies and cretins as well as the more tempered support of people who simply consider his platform less obnoxious than his opponent’s.

But there are always those skeptics and cynics who, while not downplaying Trump’s multifarious and undeniable negativity, realize that politics is essentially an exquisitely corrupt con game at the best of times and that he’s just the distillation and embodiment of it in one humongous package. So if he were to come across as less obnoxious, those skeptics and cynics just might be persuaded to hold their noses and vote for him.

After all, Kamala’s no angel either and her party’s platform is every bit as unappetizing as his party’s. Just for different reasons . . .