“Candidates are told stories by people all the time, and it’s common for candidates to retell those stories. It’s not always possible to fully vet them, but we try.” — Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee (link)

Perhaps then, the proper choice is to not tell the story.

So here are the seeming truisms of modern U.S. political activity:

• Your friend that is telling you this or that about politics is in some way misinformed (that includes this)
• Your candidate is in some way lying
• Your candidate’s primary concern is winning
• Your candidate’s lifestyle is nothing like yours
• Your candidate does not represent most of your values
• Your candidate, if successful, will implement none or almost none of their campaign promises
• Your candidate, historically, will either do something bad or nothing
• Your candidate will drive some sort of wedge between you and someone you love

Nevertheless, you live in the most successful democracy in the history of mankind (assuming you are in the United States – statistically, based on my web server statistics, you are), and there is currently no democratically-elected government that is even close to offering the number of services ours does for the amount of taxes that we pay.

Our car may be misfiring and the exhaust may be smoking, but dang if everybody else doesn’t want a ride at some point.