People are drawn to the candidate who seems to represent something that they see in themselves or something they believe about the country.

China seeks to disintegrate all of its adversaries, from immediate neighbors to potential economic competitors. The U.S., however, is target No. 1.

Donald Trump has administered a kind of political shock therapy to the part of the voting public that hasn’t been watching closely. Lest he regain possession of the nuclear codes, intervention is called for, preferably at the polls.

He insisted on the withdrawal despite ample warnings from all sides, with the bull-headed stubbornness of someone who is often wrong but never in doubt. To paraphrase Lincoln, Biden was the author and the finisher of the debacle in Afghanistan.

Universal school choice is an untested idea that will further divide American students. It is an attempt to throw out public schooling as we know it, without long-term evidence of higher student achievement.

I’d call this one a plus for Harris when it came to image and a plus for Trump on issues. In other words, a draw.

As much as some people or parties try to lay claim to the nation’s symbols, they belong to all Americans. We all need to protect them.

The average price at the pump is now about $3.26, which is down $1.73 from the high in June 2022. MAGA will note that it was only $2 a gallon when Donald Trump was in office — and evidence of his economic genius. It was no such thing.

Needless to say, no one is ever going to mistake Joe Biden for Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most compelling figures in American history, but the president couldn’t be a better representative of our attenuated sense of national honor.