For a long time it feels like we’ve been viewing the United States’ presidential election through the fatter end.
Everything seems a great distance away and very small and inconsequential.
But now someone has kindly pointed out we should actually be looking through the telescope the other way, it’s a case of aaargh, shock horror. It’s all enormous and right in front of our noses.
The presidential election is rushing towards us at a huge rate of knots. After a year or more of campaigning and braggadocio, nearly two in Republican Party hopeful Donald Trump’s case, it is difficult to believe there is only a fortnight now until the big day.
To New Zealanders, US elections seem to last an inordinate amount of time. We are much more used to quickfire six-week or so campaigns, and also inured to a three-year electoral cycle which constrains governments from being able to achieve any useful long-term projects.
Barely has a president got into their work than the mid-term elections appear on the horizon, at which all members of the House of Representatives and some in the Senate are elected.
From there it is pretty much all downhill to the next presidential election, with campaigning ramping up in the final year of the term.
The sheer size of the US is one reason why campaigning takes so long.
But it is also inextricably linked with crucial fundraising for presidential hopefuls, and the need to secure as many billions of dollars as possible to make a difference in the swing states.
With two weeks to go, then, how are the candidates doing?
From this distance it appears that Democratic Party nominee Kamala Harris might just have the edge on Mr Trump.
But polling in the US suggests the two are very close and that both still have work to do to secure votes in the critical swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Working out who might be ahead in these battleground states has the same air about it as asking how long is a piece of string.
Different polls give different results, naturally. However, a Washington Post/Schar School opinion poll on Monday said Ms Harris was ahead in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, with Mr Trump leading in North Carolina and Arizona.
The two are tied in Nevada.
Nationally, 49% of likely voters said they supported Ms Harris and 48% said Mr Trump. A Reuters/Ipsos survey of registered voters last week put Ms Harris’ support steady at 45% and Mr Trump’s at 42%.
While those figures might make it appear Ms Harris is clearly ahead, they are within the margins of error of the surveys.
Before the 2016 election, poll results were similarly murky and we all know who won then.
Meanwhile, billionaire car manufacturer and X boss Elon Musk has been busy muddying the waters with his highly questionable gift of $US1 million ($NZ1.65m) a day to a lucky person who has signed his online petition supporting the Constitution’s First and Second Amendments, guaranteeing freedom of speech and firearms ownership respectively.
Plenty of critics are gobsmacked at Mr Musk’s swaggeringly arrogant apparent flouting of the rule that it is illegal to pay someone to register to vote.
However, some think he has been clever enough to just avoid any prosecution, because signing a petition is a significant step away from registering to vote.
Bearing in mind Mr Musk’s conceited flight of fancy, this is a very good time not to trust too deeply what social media posts, on both sides, might be claiming, nor to put faith in what polls might say.
As the fortnight counts down to a week and then days, there will be a lot of people across the political spectrum fearful about what is going to happen.
The sad and worrying thing is that, whatever the result, the Trump factor and his extreme following means it is unlikely to be a good outcome for the US and the world.
