Well, dear readers, despite distractions, like another hurricane and the sight of the northern lights in our backyards, the calendar says Election Day is just three weeks away. Some folks are voting already.

Who is winning? Who knows?

If you believe the polls (and I don’t) the nation is split sort of evenly between Grandpa Don, age 78, and the Lady Veep, 60.

The experts(?) proclaim most people have made up their minds. They tell us we have picked one candidate or the other and  — most likely  — will stick to their choice.

So what is next? Will there be an “October surprise?” You know, a last-minute bombshell revelation designed to swing the race.

I don’t know about you, but I am a little bit over bombshells that move the dial. We have had enough of them in the last few years. Haven’t we?

Look back for a minute. We experienced bombshell one on Jan. 6 when an insurrection followed a goofy attempt to overturn the election. The attempt looked like it was crafted by a law firm called “Curley, Moe, and Larry.” Remember Rudy G. and the “Kraken” lady?

Even the former veep, who spent four years kowtowing to his boss and leading what “The Atlantic” calls the “brownnosed brigade,” wouldn’t go along with that one. FYI, that “brigade” is the gaggle of political types who once disparaged Grandpa Don and now praise him like he was the second coming.

How about that bunch of civil and criminal charges and convictions? They came one after the other with the latest from Bob Woodward’s new book revealing that Grandpa Don sent COVID testing equipment to Russia’s Czar Vlad Putin while most of our nation could not obtain them for their families. Grandpa Don’s campaign called this a bunch of lies. Then the Kremlin confirmed it  — oops. 

Then the challenger survived (thanks to the Almighty) a pair of assassination attempts.

The Dems have also done a lot to cause concerns. Like the sloppy withdrawal from Afghanistan, a disgrace on par with the U.S. exit from Vietnam in March 1973.

Or a fumbled debate performance that clearly showed the nation it was time to take the car keys away from Grandpa Joe. Suddenly he was replaced with the Lady VEEP.

And, by the way, there was the years-long fiasco at the southern border that is linked to the Lady VEEP. I know the law won’t allow the president to send the Marines down to Texas to shoot folks who want to sneak in, but the Demos, including the Lady VEEP, should have, and could have, done a whale of a lot better job keeping a lid on the situation.

And, who in the world would think we would be safer by defunding the police departments we hired to keep us safe? Sorry, my deep blue friends, I know there are bad apples out there who tarnish the badge, but that is no reason to downgrade every cop who wears a blue or brown uniform.

Now don’t bother to run to some partisan website to find some nugget of bile that I failed to mention on one side or the other. There is plenty of blame and wrongheaded silliness to go around.

Of course, grocery prices are too high, as is the cost of buying a house and renting an apartment. But neither Grandpa Don nor the Lady VEEP will have the power to wave a magic wand and make it all better. That takes time, hard work, and just plain good luck.

But when you look at some of the data, it suggests that we might be on the right track. Gas prices are down, and the stock market (and your 401k, if you are lucky enough to have one) are in record territory. With the jobs rate at near full employment, at 4.1%, just about everyone who wants a job has one.

Mortgage rates seem to be coming down, although the recent hurricanes might rumble the homeowners insurance market.

Here is the bottom line of this rant.

We are on the cusp of electing a president, not a king or a saint. We know politicians stretch the truth, with some more than others. And no candidate can claim the gift of infallibility. So, dear readers, no matter which candidate you favor, make plans to vote on Nov. 5 or earlier. Then, dear readers, hang on for the next thing.

In the meantime, some good folks are collecting stuff at Brady’s and other places to send down to the Southland to help the hurricane relief efforts.

In times of calamity, it is good to lend a hand to those in need. That is one thing we can agree upon.

No matter who wins the election, in just a few months, come the wild winds of winter, it might be our turn to need a helping hand.