My wife and I (at this writing) have lived together for more than thirty years. Laughed together, cried together, eaten together, slept together, dreamed together. I believe she knows me better than any other living person.

Yet when I put that question to her where I’m concerned, her answer was that although she knows me very well, as well as is humanly possible, she doesn’t know me completely. And I would say the same thing about her were I asked the same question.

OK, so what does all this have to do with the price of rice in China, as people used to say when I was a boy?

Nothing much. Only this.

Every four years we experience a presidential campaign filled with partisanship of the most intense emotional coloring imaginable. Acrimony beyond reason. Bitter accusations. Vicious name-calling. Hatred on both sides. And even the tearing-apart of friendships and families over why one guy in the race is the good guy and the other the evil one.

Why?

Given that no one knows either of the men running for the highest office in the land — not even their wives, parents, children, closest friends and advisors, or even the candidates themselves — how can one explain the venomous animosity and verbally violent divisiveness that always ravages the nation at those times?

Why, indeed. I have no idea. Do you?

And to bring the point of this piece even closer to home than personal comfort would allow, tell me, do you really know anything about the guy you’re voting for other than his name and the way he looks? More than the people voting for the other candidate know about him?

I would bet not.

Think about it.