If “Mr. Smith” were in a Presidential Debate, here is what he might say:

Moderator: Hello. Welcome to this first of two fictional debates.

Mr. Trump: This debate is already rigged!

Secretary Clinton: I am no longer responding to Donald, so I have nothing to say.

Mr. Trump: Good…trademark.

Moderator: Let’s move on. Mr. Smith, if you go to Washington…

Mr. Smith: By the way, it was a great movie with Jimmy Stewart.

Moderator: Yes…a classic, but if you were elected how would you solve poverty?

Mr. Smith: I wouldn’t.

Moderator: Um, pardon?

Mr. Smith: I wouldn’t because I alone can’t. You can lump into that: solving crime, ending drug addiction, curing obesity, or lowering the cost of medical insurance.

Moderator: But you are running for President, sir.

Mr. Smith: Yes. But I am not an all-powerful omniscient god. Not only that, but I am only one branch of government at the federal level. Then there are the 50 states and their legislators. And, if I heard you correctly, you used the word ‘solve’—that implies that poof the problem is gone for good. Poverty and the rest of the aforementioned maladies facing America can’t be “solved” by one person.

Mr. Trump: I can…only I can…trademark.

Secretary Clinton: I am no longer responding to Donald, so I have nothing to say.

Moderator: Mr. Trump, the next time you interrupt, your mike will be turned off.

Mr. Smith: Anyway, I can’t solve racism either. And these are only the domestic issues. I can’t stop immigration—no “wall” can. I can’t make the planet stop warming. I can’t replace dictators like Assad in Syria or his ilk in North Korea, not to mention the brutal leaders in Africa, who are literally chasing the continent’s people into the sea.

Moderator: Well, Mr. Smith, then why are you going to Washington when you admit you can’t solve these problems?

Mr. Trump: He’s a loser…(Microphone off)

Secretary Clinton: Again, I am not commenting on anything Donald says. However, I think the point Mr. Smith is making is that one person alone cannot ‘solve’ any of those issues. We are ‘Stronger Together!’ and I have a 30 year history…

Moderator: No…no…we already…just turn her microphone off for a while.

Secretary Clinton: …I began working for…(microphone off)

Mr. Smith: Yes, it’s true. We are stronger together, but we are not acting in the best interest of the American citizens or following the provisions of The Constitution

Moderator: Please explain. They won’t bother you anymore.

Mr. Smith: Look, I don’t want to go to Washington for job security; there should be term limits in congress and the senate. I want to make my voice heard so people can hopefully realize that we have more in common, and to be aware as Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Moderator: So what would you say to the American people?

Mr. Smith:  I think Justice Scalia was right about limits to the Second Amendment writing that there can be legal and legitimate restrictions on guns. I think that it is not the governments’ –state or federal—what  a woman does with her body .The Supreme Court ruled that states cannot put the interests of a fetus ahead of the interests of the pregnant woman until the fetus is "viable."After viability, the state could regulate or prohibit abortions unless they were ``necessary, in appropriate medical judgment'', to preserve the life or health of the woman. I’d prefer a woman goes to term and give the child up to adoption. But I have no right to tell her what to do.

Moderator: Well, that’s two controversial issues. What about the Black Lives Matter issue of racism, Mr. Smith?

Mr. Smith: I think racism is a stain, and has been, on America’s moral fabric. I think Americans need to heed Dr. King’s creed: to judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. We make assumptions about blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews…the list is endless. I think Atticus Finch’s words in the American classic novel Mockingbird are timeless. To his children he said that once you step into some else’s shoes and walk around in them, well you’ll never understand them. Ghettoes are the last remnants of segregation, and it will take individual strength on all of us rid the issues plague inner cities. It’s on all of us.

Moderator: You mentioned global warming?

Mr. Smith: Yes. I think it is a foregone conclusion that man made warming of the planet is the major driver in climate, and it threatens the existence of the generation we are sending to elementary schools today. I think solar panels should be the landscape of the desert; that aqueducts should flow west to the heartland, even over the Rocky Mountains. I think coal and oil should be significantly phased out of the national energy plan. But it is bigger than America—its about developing nations like India, China, Brazil. I think the Paris Accords are the best chance for global survival.

Moderator: We are short on time but quickly, what about education?

Mr. Smith: I think that school’s budgets shouldn’t be determined by the tax base of the neighborhood—but that a national baseline should be established for adequate funding for all schools. Jonathon Kozol made that point in Savage Innocents decades ago. I think teachers should not receive tenure until they have served 10 years with distinction, as judged by the master teachers of those districts.

Moderator: Again, quickly, on taxes and how to you bring jobs back to America?

Mr. Smith: We pay a price for living in this great nation and that price should be progressive, not regressive. The more you personally make, the more you rate. Corporations leave and outsource because their allegiance is to its shareholders, not to American interests. So when that occurs I think we have only two choices: lower corporate taxes and pray they return their factories here—and that is an iffy proposition since they can always find cheaper labor and increase profits as we try to offset their tax bill, or we can look to President Obama’s program of “insourcing” as explained in the Washington Monthly: “Though President Obama has praised insourcing’s leaders as “CEOs who take pride in hiring people here in America.” Why are companies doing that? Some companies consider insourcing  “have learned the hard way about offshoring’s hidden downsides, such as the lack of intellectual property protection for proprietary manufacturing processes, quality control issues, and the frustration of waiting weeks for products to arrive by container ship while rivals potentially rush hot new products to the shelves. Moreover, long supply chains mean more exposure to earthquakes and tsunamis, wars, oil shocks, and other unpredictable disruptions.”

Moderator: Well, that’s interesting.

Mr. Smith: It is.

Moderator: Well, thank you Mr. Smith, but we have run out of time. Join us on our next fictional debate next week in which we will tackle Obamacare, Isis, Middle East peace, immigration, the Supreme Court and a host of other issues. We hope you vote on Election Day, November 8^th. Goodnight.