By Britt Nelson

Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff.

Everywhere you look you these days you keep hearing why can’t voters come up with better candidates for president of the United States? Here we are, stuck with establishment-backed Democrat Hillary Clinton and her decade’s worth of controversies, lies and investigations; and with Republican New York billionaire, the one and only controversial anti-establishment, Donald Trump. Even the Republicans are revolting against Trump while they hold their nose supporting Clinton.

Campaign 2016 will also see third-party candidates Libertarian Gary Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico, and for the Green Party there is Dr. Jill Stein, of Massachusetts. That’s it folks. Will it be Clinton, Trump, Johnson or Stein for president? For Johnson and Stein they must each poll nationally at or above 15 percent to be included in the presidential debates with Clinton and Trump beginning Sept. 26. That’s when the rubber meets the road.

Right now we are in the throes of a two-way political smear slug-fest involving Clinton and Trump throwing everything they can at each other complete with so many inaccuracies coming from both political campaigns that you simply cannot keep up with it all. Watching U.S. television news and reading social media reports it’s hard to tell what’s true and what isn’t. The news media doesn’t even hide its shameful bias toward Clinton and against Trump.

Every day brings new revelations like the latest with Trump not releasing his taxes, Trump’s claims that President Obama and Clinton started ISIS in Iraq, Trump’s bankruptcies, father of Orlando shooter backs Clinton, Clinton’s staff emails between the Secretary of State’s office and the Clinton Foundation, now there’s a Clinton Family Foundation different from the Clinton Foundation, Clinton’s taxes show she and husband Bill Clinton gave $1 million dollars to their Clinton Family Foundation, 33,000 deleted emails recovered by Wikileaks slowly being released, withholding Republican campaign cash from Trump, Clinton’s failure to release transcripts of Wall Street speeches that brought in millions and continuing claims by Trump of campaign rigging and cheating by Democrats… This list could go on and on.

Nationwide polls have turned toward Clinton giving her a seven percentage-point lead, according to Real Clear Politics. Important swing-state polls in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida all show Clinton ahead at this point.

Trump keeps reminding voters that Clinton openly states that taxes on the middle class will go up during a Clinton administration while under Trump taxes would go down for middle-class citizens and businesses. It’s no secret that when voters go to the polls it’s the economy that gets voted upon and their pocketbooks. That will also be true this election along with national security as a leading issue.

Both Clinton and Trump have enormous negatives associated with them. Issues of trust and suitability for office never seem to go away. But all of presidential Campaign 2016 will soon come to a head.

According to the non-profit Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), three 90-minute debates between Clinton and Trump will take place beginning Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY; then Oct. 9 in St Louis and again Oct. 19 in Las Vegas. It remains to be seen if Johnson or Stein will be included in these debates, however they will be on the ballots in most states.

The first and third debate will be conducted by a single moderator asking questions of the candidates while the second debate will be a town-hall-type format with half the questions coming directly from voters in the audience. The moderators for these debates have yet to be announced by the CPD.

Trump is demanding fairness from the moderators with regard to their questions in light of alleged media bias against him. He has also questioned the reasoning of scheduling the first two presidential debates during NFL football games which could lower the number of viewers. These debates will forever be known as ‘the football debates.’

For the North American electorate and the candidates, these debates will determine who ultimately wins on Nov. 8 in the national general election. Nothing in the polls right now will be the same after the debates are over and the U.S. makes up its collective mind.

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.