Well, it has begun.

I knew that it would. In fact, I am a little shocked that it took this long before it hit.

And to be honest, it seems to be a little bit smaller scale than usual. Perhaps we can thank the coronavirus pandemic for that.

“It,” of course, is the election campaign television ad season.

Oh, there have been plenty of ads over the past couple of months. However, it did not seem to be as many as four years ago. But when the timer hit 60 days left until Election Day, the commercials, especially for the presidential election, ramped up.

Once again, there is a recurring theme. Don’t vote for the other guy, because he is terrible and he will do horrible things and make your life miserable. Vote for me and I will make your life wonderful.

It is a ploy that works. Or else it is a ploy that the political pundits, campaign managers and TV ad gurus tell the candidates will work. I am not so sure.

I sort of get it. I mean, after all, a vast majority of Americans already have their minds made up. There are those folks who will vote Republican no matter who the candidate is. Likewise the folks who always vote Democratic. Then there are those who love one candidate and are going to vote for them no matter what. Or those who hate one candidate and will vote for someone else, anyone else, no matter what.

I think there are a lot of people who fall into one of those categories. And, that means, of course, that they have already made their minds up and no amount of millions of dollars of TV advertising is going to change their minds.

That leaves the so-called undecided voter. The one who has yet to decide who to vote for. I am really not convinced there are very many of those out there, especially this year.

Normally I am one of those. Oh, I have a pretty good idea who I will vote for, but I do like to do a little studying of which candidate, from either party, most reflects my views on different issues.

Admittedly, that has become more difficult to do.

Take the presidential election for instance. Someone last week asked me which crazy, old white guy was I going to vote for? And then they lamented that out of the 350 million people in this country, the best the Republicans and Democrats could come up with was to offer us Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Surely, they said, there has to be someone else better. There just has to be someone that would be so much better than either of the two major party candidates.

I have to say it, but I see their point.

Now before you get all riled up and send me a letter or an email to straighten me out on why Biden or Trump is the better choice for president, let me just say that my mind is already made up. I know whom I am going to vote for for president. And probably every other office, as well.

So those letters will not do any good. Just like all the millions of dollars of TV commercials that will fill the air waves from now until Nov. 3 won’t do any good either.

I’m not saying I am happy about my choice, but on the other hand I do want to vote. I have not missed voting in the General Election since I was 18 years old. And that was a long, long time ago.

If, by chance, you are one of those folks who has not made up their mind on whom to vote for, I strongly suggest you do some research on the candidates to help you decide which one best represents your views. And don’t just rely on the political commercials on TV. If you do that, you will become convinced that both choices are the devil incarnate and you will not want to vote for either one.

That is always an option.

There are seven other names of candidates running for president that are on the Minnesota ballot, including Kanye West. Yes, you read that right. Kanye West. Really. Perhaps you don’t know who that is. I suggest you Google him and you will be quite surprised that he is a presidential candidate.

There is even another option for you. You could, of course, write in a name as well, if you wanted to. Even your own name.

But, really, would you even want the job of being president of the country? Don’t you wonder a little bit about the sanity of those who do?

Once again, I hope that you take the time to vote. And, remember, you only have about six weeks to make up your mind.

Although, I am fairly sure you probably already have.