New Orleans        Reading my local paper, The New Orleans Times-Picayune Advocate, I couldn’t help but read an article about a pollster in the north Louisiana city of Shreveport, despite my commitment these days to not read anything about polls or the polls themselves.  I actually read it more than once, because I wasn’t sure that the actual story fit the headline:  Shreveport Pollster Predicts a Presidential Race Blowout.

Here’s the word from Shreveport:

Shreveport daily tracking pollster Vantage Data House sees a trend toward Harris surging to victory come Nov. 5.  “Whether it’s due to faulty polling, media spin, or a strategy designed to keep voters engaged, reality is starting to break through. This election could be shaping up to be a blowout, and it’s time to focus on the actual data — not just what we’re being told,” Vantage concluded in an analysis released to its subscribers Wednesday and entitled “The Blowout No One Sees Coming.” “We’re not fortunetellers but the data we’re seeing says the exact opposite of what everyone else says,” said Vantage CEO Bishop George, who concedes that publishing the group’s findings amounts to a huge roll of the dice for the company’s future. “I give our subscribers what the data says,” George said.

Really, that’s what it said.  They had the call right on Edwards winning for governor in Louisiana some years ago, but with every other report showing a seesaw race, back and forth, and too close to call, you read this huge outlier and shake your head.  I want to believe, but just can’t get there.

I think the electorate needs to copy the French, every time, including recently, when the far right National Front and someone from the Le Pen family is in the presidential runoff or in danger of taking over the parliament, the famously fractious parties from the far left to the moderate right, come together to make sure they don’t win.    Unquestionably, Le Pen has a deep and committed base, just as Trump does, but realizing the danger to the Republic, all parties come together to assure they don’t run the country.  Sure, they have trouble getting it together after that important job is done, thanks to President Macron, but that’s a whole different project.  In the last election a left coalition was the largest vote getter and should have been allowed to form the government, which is on a separate schedule from the presidential term, but at least they saved their country.

We have only two main parties, but a host of others from the Greens on down that pick up a fair number of “spoiler” votes.  If Shreveport, is wrong, and everyone else is right, and this is a nail biter, then why was whacko Robert Kennedy, Jr. the only one who threw in the towel.  In his case, he went with Trump on some kind of devil’s bargain.  What’s the excuse from the rest, especially when we’re talking now about fascism?

In my mind, that includes all of the folks who also say they are walking the election because of various principled differences with Harris, many of which have merit on the war, climate, and the rest.  If not walking, some are voting down the ballot as a protest.

This isn’t the time for any of that.  We can all fight those fights later, and I’d be glad to join them, but there’s no way to listen to Trump and his people these days and rationalize not voting.  To protect what we have left of democracy in America, we need to do right and vote.