Advice from Groucho Marx for Reading the Major Parties' Platforms

“Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

(I have not been able to track down the exact source where Groucho is supposed to have said this. But it sure sounds like something he’d say, and I've never read it attributed to anyone else. In any case, it certainly fits the situation the electorate has endured probably since the Democrats issued the first party platform in 1840: that is, promises that bear little if any relationship to the views of the party nominee, or what he (or she) might do if lucky enough to win election.)