Remembering those great presidential campaigns with McCain, Obama and Romney

How on earth have "diversity" and "equity" and "inclusion" become dirty words?

As we rush headlong toward November 5, it's a dead certain reality that our already badly divided country will become even more divided.

There have always been issues that divide people, whether on the local level or society as a whole, but at the national level, despite claims to the contrary, it's become party first and country sometimes a distant second.

The border bill that conservative Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma - and others - worked so hard on, looked like it might actually make it through Congress until Donald Trump told his party he needed the border as an election issue and, poof, the bill was doomed. Again, party first.

When President Biden spoke about the bill in his State of the Union address and said it was a strong bill with certain bipartisan appeal, the cameras flashed on Lankford, who was nodding in agreement, much to the chagrin of most members of his party.

I remember the times Barack Obama ran against John McCain and then Mitt Romney, and while I had my favorite both times, I didn't go to bed at night deathly afraid that my guy might not win.