By Bob Gaydos

     I was voter number 838 Sunday afternoon, Oct. 26, at the Government Center in Monticello, N.Y.. Row A, Kamala Harris and Democrats, all the way. “Yes” on New York State Proposition One extending protection against discrimination in several categories including pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes — Democrats’ preemptive effort to thwart possible Republican efforts to enact a national abortion ban.

            Republicans have forfeited any chance of consideration at the ballot box with their full-throated and conscience-free embrace of all things Trump, punctuated by the all-out salute to hatred and bigotry at his Sunday night Madison Square Garden rally. An utterly despicable display.

       In contrast, it was a pleasure casting the vote Sunday. A sunny afternoon. Lots of parking. No lines. Plenty of helpful volunteer poll workers. Name, address, signature. Smooth as silk. Well done, Sullivan.

       Of course, this is precisely the kind of thing Republicans have been trying to dismantle across the country — orderly, honest, uncomplicated voting. For all. When that happens everywhere, they tend to lose nationally because their policies don’t sit well with many Americans. Especially for the past decade when their only policy has been to oppose anything Democrats propose. It’s hard to run a two-party system of government that way.

       That’s why Trump and the MAGAs want it their way: one ruler with absolute power and a bunch of flunkies to make it happen. Essentially eliminate all marginalized citizens — non-white, non-straight, non-Christian — who might expect support from their government by eliminating their vote and the votes of those who support the concept of equal rights and opportunity (those Trump calls “the enemy within”).

       It wasn’t that long ago that women were on that list of marginalized citizens. Not anymore. They have the vote and tend to vote in larger numbers than men. They have a candidate this year who understands their concerns and those of the citizens who were targets of ugly “jokes” and comments in Madison Square Garden Sunday night.

       Early voting numbers are up in many areas of the country where it hasn’t always been as easy as it was in Monticello Sunday afternoon. I’d like to think it’s a positive sign for Kamala Harris and those who want to protect and preserve democracy in America. 

          Vote like your freedom depends on it.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Trump and Harris at the debate.

 “First you say you do and then you don’t.

   Then you say you will and then you won’t.

    You’re undecided now, so what are you gonna do?”

     Those are the lyrics to a song that was popular in the ‘40s and ‘50s, recorded by, among others, Ella Fitzgerald and the Ames Brothers.

       A simple song for a simpler time. Today, the song’s predicament remains the same. Someone has extreme difficulty making up his or her mind. But there is a heightened urgency to a need for the answer and growing frustration with those who can’t provide it.

        Yeah, we’re talking about those “undecided” voters who watched the recent debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and still can’t figure out who they want to be President of the United States.

        Really?

        Harris was cool, calm and confident, exactly what one would hope of the current vice president of the United States, also a former senator and prosecutor. She spoke from experience and with compassion. She mostly didn’t try to evade questions and definitely didn’t make stuff up.

   Trump?

    On abortion: “They’re executing newborn babies.”

    Out of the blue: “They’re performing transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison.”

     Immigration: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in (Haitian immigrants). They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

     On replacing Obamacare: Moderator (frustrated) : “So just yes or no. You do have a plan?

      Trump: “I have concepts of a plan.”

       The rest was mostly stream-of-consciousness blaming of immigrants for imagined increases in crime rates, defensiveness over the size of crowds at his rallies, mumbo jumbo about tariffs and praise for the two most dangerous leaders in Europe, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Also a lot of angry faces.

        And yet, some people described by various media outlets as “undecided voters” in a very close contest, said they still haven’t decided which of the candidates they would like to hold the most powerful office on the planet. 

        Whew…. I don’t know who these people are but, you know what, I don’t believe some of them and, in these changing times, the rest will just have to change their tune and, as Paul Simon sang, “Get on the bus, Gus,” and set themselves free with President Kamala Harris.   

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she is introduced during the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.’s Grand Boulé,in Indianapolis.

    Much as the politicians and those whose job it is to write about them think there is nothing else worth writing and reading about in the world, they’re wrong. But they can dominate the news coverage through sheer persistence and repetition, as witness the recent non-stop “reporting” on how Joe Biden was slipping mentally as well as physically and was too old to serve another term as president and needed to step aside as a presidential candidate for someone — anyone — younger.

     Donald Trump, nearly as old, clearly slipping and never close to Biden in terms of intellect and knowledge of how stuff actually works (never mind moral compass) pretty much got a pass through all this because the media had already decided what the storyline was.

     Well, Biden flipped the story on them when they were napping on a Sunday afternoon. He apparently caught Republicans napping, too, because all they had been talking about for weeks and had highlighted at their crowning of Trump at their nominating convention was beating “Old Joe.”

     No mo. Joe’s out, Kamala’s in it to win it and much of the media is now busy trying to come up with a storyline on why the vice president just can’t beat Trump.

      Hotshot political writer talking to a colleague working at a desk close by: “Harris? Really? I mean she’s too … well, she’s not … well, you know, she doesn’t … and isn’t she too … well, yes, as you say, Democrats are acting weird and rallying behind her. Like, all of them, even the lefties. Wow! How’d they do that? And they seem excited. And she’s getting lots of positive social media reaction outside of the MAGA sites. And she’s raising a ton of money already. A lot! Of course, she is smarter and much younger than Trump. Then there’s the abortion issue that Trump bragged about … but Republicans are now trying to hide that. And there’s the women’s vote, the black vote, the black women’s vote, the young people’s vote. Heck, the Asian-American vote. … You know, despite what our polls say, Trump might actually have a problem beating her because, well, you know how he talks about women and Harris won’t put up with it. After all, she’s a former prosecutor and he’s a convicted felon and a sexual offender and she’s sent a lot of them to prison. She also went after phony, for-profit colleges, like the one Trump ran. And, really, he did take all those documents. And he does lie constantly and isn’t too bright and rambles a lot. Plus, she keeps talking about preserving democracy the way Biden did and a lot of people like that and Trump has called us “fake news” in the past. A lot. Remember? And now Republicans are whining that Biden tricked them? No fair! That he should be forced to run because he said he was? Are they kidding? How would that work? Or that he should now step down as president? But he never said he couldn’t do the job and no one else did, just that he’s too old for four more years. Which you could also say about Trump, right? You ever see him walking down a ramp? Scary. And Trump’s been talking about sharks and electric boats and abandoning NATO and Ukraine and having the Justice Department go after his “enemies,” which doesn’t sound good. And that J.D. Vance he picked to run as his vice president? He once called Trump “America’s Hitler”! Now he’s acting like Trump’s new Rudy Giuliani. He’s changed his name three times. Forget George Santos. Is there a bigger phony around? Maybe we should recheck Vance’s “hillbilly” story. …

     “I mean, Biden has done a good job and he’s a proud man with a long record of service who has suffered a lot of personal loss in his life and it takes a lot of humility, especially because people think you’re too old, to step aside, to pass the torch to ‘a younger generation,’ as he said. To finish the job. To preserve democracy, as he also said. After all, Harris can run on his record because it’s their record, right? And it’s a good one. Economy? Foreign policy? All good. He even worked out a bill — bipartisan — to address the Mexican border issue, but Republicans killed it because Trump told them to. He didn’t want Biden to have it as a campaign issue. How cheesy, right? And Trump’s got nothing real to offer but revenge. That and tax breaks for rich people. I mean, did Mexico ever build that wall? Did we ever see his ear? And he’s already attacking Harris personally. Calling her crazy. Mispronouncing her name. Petty. … So, whaddya think? At this point, it looks like Republicans are really stuck with Trump, right? I mean, he’s got all his MAGAs, but that’s not enough to get elected without cheating and the guy is really old and showing signs of slipping, isn’t he? I mean, he never really was all there, anyway, right? And Old Joe really set Kamala up great, like overnight, didn’t he? Slick. She’s got a lot of positive energy going. Money rolling in. And she is the VP.  Hmmm … Hey, thanks for listening … 

          “Hey, boss! I think I’ve got a new angle on a storyline for Kamala. …”

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

The Biden team.

Sometimes the nay-sayers unintentionally help the aye-sayers.

     For example, with all the media hype on whether Joe Biden should seek re-election and questions about whether he is too old and is still capable of handling the responsibilities of the presidency, one of the strongest arguments in his favor has been his record of accomplishments in office. It  is considerable.

      He brought inflation down and employment way up. He lowered prescription drug prices and capped the cost of insulin for seniors. He got wealthy corporations to pay their fair share of taxes and got legislation through Congress to combat gun violence. He actually made a major investment in rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, something which his opponent talked about a lot but never did anything about. He revived the American chip industry. He added a new nation to NATO and solidified America’s alliances in the Pacific Rim. Oh yeah, the leading stock market indicators are at record highs.

     To which some nay-sayers reply: How do you know? There could be a cabinet of people running things on his behalf.

       Well, I sure hope so. The sign of a good leader, a good executive, a good president is having people around him capable of making his or her vision a reality.

    No president can do it alone. Whom he chooses to be part of his team and what the team accomplishes says a lot about the president. So by trying to take credit away from Biden by saying maybe a whole bunch of other people accomplished these things in his name, the critics are actually complimenting Biden for his vision, for choosing good people and for listening to what they have to say and helping them get it done.

      By comparison, many team members from Donald Trump‘s chaotic presidency have criticized him for his lack of understanding or caring about presidential responsibilities. Others are in prison. Possible members of a Trump team in 2025 have authored the notorious Project 2025, which explains in detail how they would dissemble American democracy in favor of an authoritarian Christian nation.

    Predictably, since details of that document have been made public and been widely criticized, Trump, whose name appears throughout the document, has disavowed it. That’s because Trump, a convicted felon, has no agenda other than himself and power. If it’s going to hurt his ratings, he tries to run away from it. He bragged about getting Roe v. Wade overturned by appointing Supreme Court justices who would do it. But when that decision met strong opposition, he tried to backtrack from that, too. He simply lies about everything and fires people who don’t help feed his ego.

     Suffice to say, any team of folks behind the scenes doing things in Trump’s name are going to do their best to make him happy. And he’s already told us many times that what makes him happy is being treated special (absolute immunity!) and getting even with those who don’t comply. The team wagging the dog for Trump will be ruthless and vicious because he will pick those who will do his bidding in order to further their own agenda. Not the nicest and not necessarily the best and brightest. He learned that from his first term in office. He knows more than all the generals. Sycophants and soldiers, that’s what he wants.

     So, nay-sayers, do I want all those mysterious, intelligent, caring people behind the scenes making all those decisions for old, arthritic Joe Biden or do I want all those “authoritarian, anti-democratic, rightwing Christian, post the 10 Commandments in every classroom, women’s place is in the kitchen and pregnant, cut Social Security, arrest the homeless and leave billionaires alone, don’t force us to be violent” people making decisions for Donald Trump while he goes around the world like a reality show Don Quixote, jousting at windmills?

      Thanks, I’ll stick with Joe’s team.    

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Kiss your VP hopes goodbye, governor.

    Poor Kristi Noem. All she wanted to do was please The Leader and spend four years by his side eagerly dismantling American democracy and maybe making a few bucks on the side. Not an unreasonable dream for a simple farm girl from South Dakota.

    Then she went and shot and killed a puppy. On purpose. For good measure, she also knocked off a goat, reloading her shotgun after initially wounding the animal, which apparently had the annoying habit of acting like, well, a goat.

      And of course, to make sure the world, and especially Donald Trump, knew that she was a no-nonsense woman and politician who could handle difficult situations, such as might be delegated to a vice president, she wrote about it in a memoir.

     When the manuscript of the not-yet published book was leaked, to Noem’s surprise, the world was pretty much shocked that someone would kill a puppy because she couldn’t train him and not simply give him to someone else who could.

      Worse for Noem, The Leader, learning of the shooting, book, etc., reportedly was disgusted and said, “Why would she do that?” Meaning, write all about it. In true Trump fashion, he observed that the South Dakota governor obviously has a poor sense of “public relations.”

       In her attempt to out-Trump Trump, she actually bragged about her evil side. Perhaps she hadn’t been paying attention to the trials, the lies, the stream of victimhood pouring from Trump’s mouth daily. Do it, yes. Then deny, deny, deny. It’s on tape? Deny. Fake news. There were witnesses? Deny. 

        Kill a puppy? It would have to have been viciously attacking, at your throat, no choice but to defend yourself. He killed a chicken? Umm … have Michael Cohen kill the story. Get a non-disclosure agreement from the farmer.

     Noem also admitted to one slight “error” in her memoir — she never actually met North Korea President Kim Jung Il in her wanderings. Somehow he wound up on a list of political figures with whom she had, um, some kind of personal connection. Vice presidential bona fides.

     Noem’s bloodthirsty naked ambition is yet another example of the depths of desperate ignorance and immorality to which much of today’s Republican Party has succumbed. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also ran afoul of the out-Trump Trump strategy in his brief, unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, especially by being tough on the issue of abortion. Can’t be done. Trump both criticized DeSantis’ strict policies and took credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

    If anything positive emerged from Noem’s dog story, it showed that there were actually still some in her party with a heart. No one, even Republicans, seemed to like the thought of shooting a perhaps difficult dog rather than re-homing him to someone who would train and love him.

      Now, immigrants seeking asylum by crossing the border with Mexico, or students demonstrating on college campuses are still different stories. We might need the Army or National Guard to, you know, protect us.

       Anyway, after the dog story went viral, Noem was disinvited from a big Republican Party event and removed from any Trump vice presidential running mate list, if one exists.

     Maybe she can chalk this political misstep up to being from South Dakota, which is in the middle of nowhere and has fewer than a million residents and only three votes in the outdated Electoral College.

      I’ve heard rumors that there are so few people in South Dakota who are politically inclined that the residents take turns at being governor and Noem got the job because the guy ahead of her moved to Florida to sell t-shirts with a “100 percent genuine” photo of Trump and Kim embracing in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Now that sounds like a good political move for a Republican.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By BOB GAYDOS

The mail. RJ Photography

You can tell a lot about people by the contents of their mailboxes. In fact, if you pay attention, you can even learn a bit about yourself.

      For example, a recent day’s delivery to my box included ACLU Magazine, a letter from Planned Parenthood, one from the Southern Poverty Law Center and a note from Marlo Thomas for St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital.

     Now, anyone who is familiar with my columns would hardly be surprised by this mix. Since my days of reading David Bernstein’s daily editorials in The Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, N.Y. (1965-1973), I’ve been a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. Before that I was just a kid out of college who liked JFK. Since then, I’m lefty and proud and public.

     And I guess that’s the point here. Public and proud. I’ve been writing and commenting on the news and life in general for more than 50 years, but it has never seemed more important to me to be clear and forceful and consistent in expressing my opinions, however repetitive some may find them. Especially about politics and the state of the nation today.

     One of the two major political parties has, for all intents and purposes, abandoned the principle of compromise in governing for the good of the country. The Republican Party, as a willing and aggressive tool of Donald Trump, is a clear and present danger to our democracy. The past eight years testify to that.

     That’s my opinion and the opinion of many others. But still, there are millions of Americans who are buying the snake oil and gold sneakers to keep the Trump lies alive.

      And so, when I get my mail these days, I notice a certain urgency and consistency to it. These are people who feel the same as I do and are doing all they can to preserve and protect what was established in Philadelphia 248 years ago. Our democracy is at stake. This is our reality.

       I try to spread their messages so that those who have not yet recognized the true threat of the MAGA Party might one day hear it and realize what it means to them, to their freedom.

     This may sound a bit high-minded and exaggerated to some. But, again, I go back to my mailbox.

     The SPLC tells me about the spread of hate groups and its efforts to fight the threat of violent white nationalism and racism that has “gone mainstream’’ and is spreading  through our politics, media and schools and the constant racist rhetoric of Trump and a segment of the Republican Party. 

    The ACLU tells me about its legal efforts to protect voting rights from efforts, again, by Republicans, to restrict them for certain groups of people rather than promote ideas and programs those people might approve of and vote accordingly.

    The ACLU also tells me about its efforts to protect pregnant workers and  abortion rights and free speech.

    And Planned Parenthood tells me about its ongoing and increased efforts to educate the public about the threats to abortion access and to advocate for policies that protect sexual and reproductive health care for all.

     Freedom. It’s all about freedom. Many of you probably have similar messages in your mailboxes. 

   Again, that’s the point. Read them. They are there for a reason and I noticed them on this particular day for a reason.

    Our much-celebrated way of life is under attack and too many people still don’t recognize it. I would much rather write about the great work of the St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital that also comes in my mail, but if the MAGAs prevail, that will surely suffer also. Bigotry and hatred become pervasive.

      So I pay attention to my mail. I read it and I write about it. Because I still can. Because defense of freedom is not junk mail.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

     Exhale, America, you survived another election in the era of Trumpism. Apparently, some of you did learn history’s lesson on complacency enabling the spread of fascism. Not that the purported defenders of democracy — a free press — did much to help the cause.

       The “surprising” results of the 2022 midterm elections, as characterized by the mainstream media, once again demonstrated the dubious reliability of political polling and the very real risks of news agencies relying heavily on them to “predict” what is likely to occur when people give their actual opinions at the ballot box.

        The “red wave” of Republican victories predicted to occur across America failed to materialize this year, even though in midterm elections the party out of power is “supposed to” make gains because people are fed up with the current president and his policies. That’s what the political “wisdom” is and that’s the bias that goes into much of the polling and the reporting on the campaigns.

         But this year it didn’t happen. Democrats maintained control of the Senate and may have an even stronger hold depending on a runoff election in Georgia. And Republicans are likely to have only a slim margin of control in the House. And, there was no avalanche of Republican election deniers being swept into office in state elections on the strength of a Trump endorsement.

        What happened? Apparently, abortion did matter. Democracy did matter. Ukraine did matter. Inflation? Yes, it hurts. But voters obviously felt they would survive it again and, just maybe, President Joe Biden wasn’t to blame. 

        But you’d have had a hard time knowing that pre-election if you listened to the loudly opinionated “newscasts” on television and the carbon copy reporting in most newspapers, much of it based on information provided by pollsters, many of them funded by Republicans. Did anyone reporting on the polls consider that a basic Republican strategy the past several years has simply been to lie?

      Of course, by constantly repeating the polls’ supposed prediction of what was likely to happen on Election Day, the media did create a lot of anxiety among a lot of people. And maybe that got more people (especially young people) to vote who might otherwise have sat this one out. But that would only mean that the basic assumption of most polls and much reporting was incorrect to start with: that Americans were fed up with inflation and Democratic spending and eager to embrace Republican policies.

    Republican “policy” under Trump has been to divide and conquer, lie and cheat, make voting harder, restrict freedoms of non-white, non-straight, non-Christian, non-male Americans, provide tax cuts for the wealthy, dumb down the public education system, promote violence against political opponents … and blame Democrats for everything. 

      That’s a lot of alienation. It’s a lot of restriction. It’s budding fascism, in fact.

       A lot of Americans apparently noticed. Not nearly enough, but enough to prevent total chaos in Washington and to provide time to take stock of what direction this purported beacon of democracy wants to pursue.

       In its unflagging pursuit of win-or-lose, horse-race reporting based on increasingly unreliable polls (do you know anyone who actually answered a poll?), the only thing positive to say about the job of the American press on this story is that it might’ve scared enough previously unconcerned people into voting and proving the predictions of the “experts” to be wrong.

      That would mean a lot of Americans deserve credit for recognizing, for many of them perhaps the first time, the real threat to democracy represented by the Republican Party’s capitulation to Trumpism. It also means that reporters ought to be talking to more real Americans, real voters, before writing about what those Americans supposedly think. It’s important, because the threat, while weakened, has not disappeared.

       There’s a lot of arguing among Republicans today about who’s to blame for their party’s disappointing (to them) election results. (I’d say they all are.) A lot of them blame Trump himself, which is a change, and Trump himself faces several serious legal actions. But the threat is still alive and well in some elements of the Republican Party. Start talking with voters in Florida and Texas, reporters. Trumpism may or may not be fading, but fascism is always looking for another face. 

rjgaydos@gmail.com    

By Bob Gaydos

    And now it’s abortion. Again.

    The Republican Party, as predictable as ever, has reached deep into its bag of political strategems and come up with its old standby. When nothing else works, ban abortion.

     Also predictably, the media, especially TV,  swarmed all over this story as if it has never happened before. TV commentators (I cannot call them newscasters) breathlessly rushed to say everything they always say when Republicans do this, acting as if it is the only important story in America today. Social media, of course, greatly amplified the reaction.

      It’s a distraction. Precisely what Republicans want.

      It’s a proven way to take people’s minds off the failures of the GOP. It’s a proven way to rile up the voter base growing weary of Covid and wondering whether or not that presidential election really was stolen. It’s yet another way to pit Americans against each other, even though Republicans are on the wrong side of this issue as far as the majority of Americans are concerned

    A majority of Americans are pro-choice. Republicans are pro-choice when it affects them personally. End of story.

..    i’m not saying that the right of a woman to control her own body and to choose abortion if necessary is not important. The Supreme Court has already decided it is. So yes, it is disappointing that the current court chose not to consider a challenge to the outrageous Texas law effectively banning abortion. But the law will of course be challenged in court by all the groups that usually challenge such misbegotten legislation. And the Justice Department, free of the shackles of the Trump administration, not surprisingly said it will challenge the legality of the Texas law.

      But meanwhile, let us not forget a budget bill, an infrastructure bill, a voting rights bill, all proposed by Democrats and waiting for congressional approval. Again, the majority of Americans approve of the proposals of the Biden administration, all of which have been opposed by Republicans. Opposing Democratic initiatives is the entire GOP playbook.

      Let’s also not forget the ongoing Covid pandemic, exacerbated and extended in this country by the politically motivated statements and actions of Republican governors, especially those from Texas and Florida. Republicans would rather have Americans argue over abortion than notice people dying in overwhelmed hospitals in Texas and Florida … and Mississippi and Louisiana.

      Of course, there was also Afghanistan. Republicans tried to paint President Biden‘s removal of troops and evacuation of Americans and allies from that country as a total failure. It was not. Again, most Americans are glad to be out of Afghanistan and recognize the fact that the Trump administration created the situation in that country which guaranteed a messy withdrawal. Biden did not apologize for his decision, nor, by the way, did he send out a Twitter storm blaming his generals for the poor advice they gave him on the evacuation.

   With even some establishment Republicans declaring that the 2020 election was fair, not stolen, party leaders have tossed out such distractions as “woke,” cancel culture and critical race theory. Remember them? They all got traction for a brief while in the media until people realized there were more legitimate issues, more important things going on in this country, none of them being addressed by Republicans.

     The most important of those is the congressional hearing into the insurrection of January 6. Republicans in Congress have disgraced themselves trying to convince Americans that nothing serious really happened. Or if it did, Trump was not involved. Or if he was, they personally were not involved.

     This is the important story in America today. The very foundation of this nation is at stake. TV commentators talking about abortion need to ratchet down the emotion a bit, stick to the facts and history of the issue and remember all the challenges this president faced when he took office. He is tackling those challenges methodically and with a calm sense of purpose. I might suggest a couple of other things that ought to be done:

1. Those three pieces of legislation need to be passed by Congress. Also kill the filibuster. Biden needs to call West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, supposedly a Democrat, into the Oval Office for a serious man-to-man, president-to-senator, Democrat-to-Democrat taking. Something reminiscent of LBJ.

2. That special commission the president appointed to consider any changes that might be necessary to the Supreme Court needs to be told to wrap up its work quickly with a recommendation to expand the court from 9 to 13 justices. Now. Enough playing nice. And yes, it’s something Republicans would actually do.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

 Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

George Pataki … presidential candidate

George Pataki is running for president. For those of you not familiar with the name, Pataki was governor of New York state for 12 years. He is the 285th announced or soon-to-be-announced candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. I exaggerate, but not by much.

Pataki is quiet and unassuming — things most of the other members of the GOP presidential gaggle are not. He also may be delusional, which does put him in good company with the rest of the crowd.

But here’s the funny thing about Pataki: He says he’s a Republican. If that’s so, it’s not any kind of Republican that Americans have been exposed to in the 21st century. The Grand Old Party is surely old, but in 2015, it is hardly grand. It is, sad to say, a party that has lost its mind and sold its soul. The onetime Party of Lincoln today is not even the Party of Ford. It’s the party of Cheney and pick-a-Bush, sponsored by the brothers Koch.

I have resisted jumping into the 2016 presidential “debate” until now, figuring it was too early. Like, a year too early. But as the body count has increased (much more modestly on the Democratic side), I started wondering if my lack of zeal for what I was witnessing would somehow risk me being left behind. Then again, I told myself, so what?

Then George Pataki, all 6 feet, 5 inches of him, pulled me in. Is this guy serious? President? Of the United States? Yeah, he’s an easygoing, likable sort. Bright. Actually grew up on a farm. Once upon a time, I even wrote editorials endorsing him for the New York State Legislature. And he was elected governor of New York three times. That’s no easy trick for  a Republican since it’s a liberal state with a Democratic voting edge. Even more impressive, Pataki beat liberal icon and incumbent governor, Mario Cuomo, the first time out. In getting re-elected twice, Pataki showed that he can work with people of differing political views to get things done.

But … George … Republicans don’t care about that today. In fact, they run away from it. Since you’ve been away from politics for eight years, maybe you haven’t noticed that the word “bipartisan” has been stricken from the party vocabulary. If Democrats like it, Republicans don’t. Period.

The real irony of the Pataki candidacy, though, centers on his positions on the issues. While he is definitely a state’s rights, low-tax, fiscal conservative in the traditional Republican mold, his views on a host of hot-button issues are simply not in sync with today’s Republican Party.

Let’s start with climate change. Republicans have fought President Barack Obama’s efforts to combat it at every turn. The GOP-dominated Senate even went so far as to vote that humans are not causing climate change and the Republican governor of Florida has actually banned state employees from using the term, “global warming.” Finally, polls regularly show that a majority of Republicans, who proudly proclaim they are not scientists, do not believe global warming is happening.

Pataki? Unlike many Republican politicians, the Columbia and Yale graduate respects science. Strike one. He believes global warming is real. Strike two. In fact, he co-chaired a 2007 blue-ribbon,  Independent Task Force on Climate Change  organized by the Council on Foreign Relations. The other co-chair was Tom Vilsack, former Democratic governor of Iowa who is President Obama’s agriculture secretary. The panel issued a thick report stating that human-caused climate change represented a world crisis that required immediate attention. Strike three.

How about abortion? Pataki is pro-choice. Enough said.

Immigration? He supports a legal path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in this country. “We can’t send 11 million people back in railroad cars and buses and trains,” he has said.

He believes the issue of same-sex marriage should be left to the states, but as governor he signed a law providing rights for gays, including benefits for same-sex couples.

He also pushed through a tough gun-control law banning some assault weapons and requiring ballistic fingerprinting for weapons as well as raising the legal age to own a gun from 18 to 21. And he thinks it should be up to each state to decide whether to legalize marijuana.

For good measure, the former mayor of Peekskill thinks the nation should invest billions into building a first-class rail system.

Does that sound like a Republican to you?

Yes, he rips Obamacare and thinks the president hasn’t been militarily aggressive enough with ISIS and shouldn’t be negotiating with Iran on nuclear power. But virtually all the Republican candidates say those things, whether they believe them or not.

The point is, Pataki, who turns 70 this month, offers a bipartisan governing approach and reasonable views on some emotional issues in a party virtually devoid of such. In a general election against Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, that might sway some Democratic voters of a more conservative bent. But first he’s got to get through the Republican primaries and emerge victorious over the likes of : Ted (I will renounce my Canadian citizenship) Cruz; Marco (I’m young, Cuban and have a sugar daddy) Rubio; Rand (every citizen for himself) Paul; Ben (the perfect prescription for the Tea Party) Carson; Carly (I’m as wacky as any of the guys) Fiorina; Mike (the huckster) Huckabee; Rick (one more time) Santorum; Lindsay (I’m the most conservative of them all) Graham; Jeb (it’s my turn) Bush; Scott (fire the unions) Walker; Chris (I didn’t close the bridge) Christie; Rick (I can count to three now) Perry; Bobby (I really messed up Louisiana) Jindal; John (who?) Kasich; and Donald (oh shut up) Trump. Sarah Palin, where are you?

Fox News, the mouthpiece of the Republican Party, says it’s only going to put 10 candidates on stage for its televised GOP debates. Pataki might have trouble just cracking the starting lineup, which tells you where reasonableness, a respect for science and a willingness to compromise in governing get you today in the GOP.

In reporting on his decision to run for president, the Wall Street Journal described Pataki as a “centrist.” Talk about the kiss of death. They might just as well have called him a socialist, as far as today’s Republicans are concerned. It’s enough to make a guy want to switch parties.

Whaddaya think, George?

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Jeffrey Page

Who can forget the weird Todd Akin running for the Senate (loser) from Missouri as he declared during the never-ending debate on abortion: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

And who can forget Richard Mourdock, running for the Senate (loser) from Indiana with a new interpretation of the wishes of the Almighty: “. . . even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape…it is something that God intended to happen.” (Incidentally, I don’t think Mourdock ever answered the question: If a rape is intended by God, isn’t it a little presumptuous for ordinary humans to try the rapist in a criminal trial?)

Some candidates and office holders just never know to keep their mouths shut.

Nowadays, Ken Cuccinelli, the attorney general of Virginia, is running for governor. Recently he came along with a position he held 10 years ago when he was in the state legislature. His bold initiative: It is time, he said, to reinstate the anti-sodomy laws, but he began with a false assumption.

“My view is that homosexual acts – not homosexuality, but homosexual acts – are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong,” he has said.

No question Cuccinelli can kiss the gay vote goodbye, but after that business about homosexual acts, he seems to forget that there’s another group of people out there who would be affected by enactment and enforcement of anti-sodomy laws. That would be the estimated 96 percent of the population who are not gay but who nevertheless might enjoy anal or oral sex.

Cuccinelli also conveniently forgets that 10 years ago, the Supreme Court found Texas’s anti-sodomy law unconstitutional because it deprived some people of their rights to such constitutional guarantees as equal protection and due process.

In another remarkable lapse of memory, he fails to remember that the Supreme Court ruled in 1965 that government cannot and must not intrude itself into the bedrooms of Americans. It ruled so while striking down a Connecticut law that forbade the use of contraceptives. That law violated an American “right to marital privacy,” the court said.

Speaking of Texas, one of its congressional representatives, Michael Burgess, says that abortion should be outlawed because boy fetuses like to masturbate.

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?” Burgess said.

The question of an abortion’s inflicting pain on a fetus has been discussed for years but never proved one way or the other. And the question of whether those little in-utero guys manage to make themselves happy with a well-placed hand is just too bizarre.

And what of little girl fetuses? Surely their little hands occasionally wind up between their little legs, just like the little boys. Does that bring them a little pleasure? Or is Burgess telling us that girls are not part of his sexual pleasure-and-pain theorem?

Science is not on Burgess’ side. “We certainly can see a movement of a fetus during that time, but in terms of any knowledge about pleasure or pain – there are no data to assess,” Jeanne Conry, the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told U.S. News and World Report.

So where does Burgess, who identifies himself as a “former” obstetrician and gynecologist, get his information? From watching X-rated sonograms?