This photo appeared in the NY Daily News when I covered the ’84 convention as their Hometown Correspondent. I was a Reagan Delegate, and a Member of the Republican State Committee from Brooklyn, NY.

Forty years ago this week, I was a Reagan Delegate at the Republican National Convention in Dallas. This November, I’m voting for Kamala Harris — for many of the same reasons I supported Ronald Reagan.

Hear me out.

First of all — as millions of Americans can clearly see — Kamala Harris is an optimist, running an upbeat, even joyful campaign, one that is built on the sincere belief that America’s best days are still ahead.

Trump’s campaign is all doom and gloom, whining and complaining, with petulance and pissiness raised to an art form. His speeches are rambling, nonstop gripe sessions, where a bitter old billionaire bemoans his poor, tortured place in the world. Plus, he wants you to send him more money for his lawyers.

Kamala grew up in an immigrant middle class family, and worked at McDonalds to earn money as a teenager. She knows what it means to work hard and struggle in life.

Trump inherited $438 million from his Daddy, and was bankrupt a decade later. Here’s the thing: he went bankrupt running a casino, which is generally considered a license to print money. Afterwards, the only people who would loan him money were shady Russian … let’s call them businessmen.

Kamala has made freedom and democracy the core of her campaign message. She wants the government out of people’s bedrooms and believes all American citizens should be able to control their own bodies.

She understands how critical it is to support the freedom-loving people of Ukraine (who have done an absolutely cracking job of kicking Russia’s butt, and showing how ragged their army really is).

After a private Oval Office meeting with Putin’s Secretary of State (no Americans besides Trump, including U.S. translators, were permitted to attend), Trump requested a highly classified list of American covert agents around the world. Within months, dozens of them had been killed. In the history of international espionage, this has never happened before.

Trump bragged about being a dictator on Day One if he gets a second term, and has a long history of praising and hero worshipping brutal dictators in Russia, China, and North Korea. He has spoken glowingly about how China massacred the Tiananmen Square protestors in 1989. His illegal efforts to block funding for freedom-loving Ukrainians is what got him impeached the first time. Between them, Russia and China’s oligarchs have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Trump’s buildings. They own him.

In the final weeks before he was dragged kicking and screaming from the White House, Trump gave Putin a parting gift of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, that set the stage for the invasion of Ukraine and the attack on Israel.

Then there’s his attempt to overturn the election results (61 failed lawsuits, many decided by Republican or Trump-appointed judges), and that nasty business at the Capitol on January 6th. As others have said, you can’t say you love America only when your side wins. Likewise, you can’t claim to be pro-law enforcement except when they arrest you and your supporters for treason, or when a jury of your peers convicts you on 34 felony counts. And he is a cowardly, five-time draft dodger who called fallen soldiers “losers and suckers.” I won’t get into his fraudulent Trump University, or how he and his kids are banned from operating any charities in New York State because they were found to have stolen from a children’s cancer charity.

Kamala is focused on regular people, and the problems of the average American family on Main Street. To be fair, Democrats have a long history of soak-the-rich rhetoric, but in today’s world, they have a better understanding of economics. And since Trump and America’s billionaires have gamed our economic system so brazenly with their crony capitalism, it is they who are the real threat to private enterprise.

Trump, on those rare occasions when he isn’t talking about himself, cares only about the billionaire class, boasting that he has to take care of these people because they’ve donated so much to his campaign. I would remind you that Trump’s incompetent handling of the Covid pandemic was triggered by his obsession with how Wall Street might react if he took early, dramatic steps to curb the virus . Trump stubbornly resisted early advice from medical professionals, and 1.2 million Americans have died since then. Not to mention the $14 trillion it cost our economy. Look around: there are empty storefronts in neighborhoods around the country — small businesses that are gone forever, because Trump didn’t take Covid seriously.

Kamala is the daughter of immigrants, who came to America legally to seek a better life. Her Mom was a cancer research scientist and her Dad was an economist. She understands America’s unique place in the world — a shining city upon a hill, as Reagan said.

Trump’s grandfather fled to America to avoid military service (sound familiar?) in Germany, and when he got here, he ran a whore house catering to gold prospectors. Trump’s dad was arrested at a KKK rally in 1929. Trump’s current wife came here on an Einstein visa, reserved for people who are highly acclaimed in their field, like Pulitzer, Oscar, and Olympic winners, or respected academic researchers and multinational executives. Melania was a (ahem) model, whom Jeffrey Epstein claimed to have introduced to Trump.

Kamala was a tough prosecutor who put drug dealers, gang members, and sex traffickers behind bars for a long time. No wonder he is afraid of her.

The Courts determined that he raped a woman, and he is listed on the Epstein flight logs seven times. Epstein had every possible private phone number for Trump. They were thick as thieves, as the old saying goes. And if you want to delve deeper, Google the name Katie Johnson. It will make your blood boil.

When I left the Republican Party eight years ago to become an Independent, I hoped the GOP would eventually wake up and purge itself of the extreme Trump elements. But they no longer see him as a flaw: to them, he’s a shining feature of today’s new GOP. And that is profoundly sad for the party that gave us Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan.

To those Republicans and Conservatives who mock Kamala and after all of this still deny that there’s anything remotely wrong with Trump, I say: history will not be kind to you. And in the near future, your own children and family will hold you accountable. Those of you young enough to live a few more decades will have an extremely uncomfortable time at family gatherings over the coming years. But you deserve it.

To those who are on the fence, but not ready to vote for (gasp!) a Democrat for President, I say: Kamala is not perfect. She may be wrong on a bunch of issues, but if she wins, we get to vote her and the Democrats out in four years.

If Trump wins, the American experiment is over. You don’t think it can happen here? Think again. January 6th was a dry run. A practice session. Trump’s cultists have made it clear what they intend to do if he wins — a dark, authoritarian future for America that includes the surveillance of all pregnant women and restrictions on their travel.

Today’s Republican Party has become an embarrassment that has left you and millions of Americans behind. You owe the GOP nothing.

What you owe America is a vote for a better, brighter future that Trump and all his ranting can never provide.

As Ronald Reagan said in 1980, “Vote your best hopes, not your worst fears.”

Kamala is not perfect. But in this race, she is clearly America’s best hope. Join me in voting for her.