Opinion

It is a common, if not especially honorable, practice in American politics for a candidate and her campaign to prefer to run not against their actual opponent on the ballot but rather against the most unpopular caricature of the opponent’s party. That explains why Democrats, for close to three decades after the election of 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt crushed Republican Herbert Hoover by 18% in the popular vote and carried 42 of the then 48 states, continued to run against “Herbert Hoover Republicans.” Ignored was Hoover’s humanitarian record during World War I, when through his leadership, 7 million Belgians were rescued from certain starvation.

Three short months ago, I received an encouraging text from my friend Ravi Zacharias. Now, as if in a blink of an eye, he has passed away. Along with countless thousands, I grieve.

Dear Annie: I come from a large family. I was the youngest of four girls, and there were several years between us. Growing up, I barely knew my two older sisters.

Dear Annie: I have been married to my wonderful wife for 25 years. When we were dating, all my friends were jealous because she was so movie-star beautiful. What they didn’t know was how incredible her figure was. We didn’t go swimming much, and she always dressed conservatively. I kidded her that I was the only one that knew what a grand figure she had. We had been married for a couple of years when a friend of hers told her about a nude beach not far away in Miami. To my surprise, she wanted to go, and she loved it, especially the attention she received. She had been so shy and conservative in her dressing that I don’t think she realized just how attractive she was in all ways.

When COVID-19 began impacting the United States, a vocal minority of conservatives began making statements that wound up being betrayed by the truth. For example, a recurring sentiment had been that the virus was nothing more than “a bad flu.” Many compared it to H1N1, the swine flu.

When a all Street Journal editorial warned this week against any precipitous U.S. withdrawal that might imperil our gains in Afghanistan, an exasperated President Trump shot back:

Dear Annie: I am a USPS mail carrier. My husband was sent home six weeks ago, with pay, while I head out every morning to the possibility of contracting COVID-19.

Usually, when a CEO severely underperforms peers, he or she is fired or handed a gold watch and given a quick retirement party. In the Democratic Party, a rotten performance is a qualification for the presidency.

On March 24, President Donald Trump said he wanted the country and the economy “opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”

Dear Annie: I am 81 years old and a longtime reader of your advice column. I thought the message below might be useful to you and your readers somehow. It is certainly authentic. I received it as a link to click on. I couldn’t open it, but the sender, who is president of a local seniors group that has been keeping members entertained with all sorts of items in her daily email, kindly typed the test for me. It was Steve Job’s final essay before dying a billionaire at age 56. — Words of Wisdom