Let us breathe deeply and clear our minds.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons voters (and the media) should be disenchanted by the candidates and the campaign, but the idea that we’ll be voting in the dark is not one of them. Yes, the candidates have been reluctant to publish some unpleasant details of their policies. [See footnote 1] Most presidential candidates in modern times don’t, for the understandable reason that details can be cherry-picked for attack ads. Yes, identifying Romney’s plan requires some guesswork, because he has been at various times all things to all voters. And yes, Obama has been short on grand man-to-the-moon promises and on the pulse-quickening oratory our weary commentariat requires. He sometimes seems to have misread Mario Cuomo’s famous guidance: he governs in prose and campaigns in prose.

And yet, can we really say we don’t know what to expect from these two men?

With Obama, we can anticipate that the unfinished business of universal health care and the re-regulation of the Wall Street casino will be finished. We can expect investments in education, infrastructure and innovation, followed by a gradual, balanced attack on deficits that includes higher taxes on the wealthiest. (And this time he will have a hefty stick to apply to a recalcitrant Congress: the fiscal cliff, which forces Congress to compromise or share the blame for the ensuing havoc.) We can expect the Pentagon, after winding down two wars, to bank a peace dividend. If Obama is re-elected, especially if he is elected with substantial Latino support, we can expect that he will try to deliver on his postponed promise of comprehensive immigration reform. The fact that these objectives represent a continuation of his first term does not mean he is aiming low. These are ambitious goals.

If Romney is elected, there will be tension between his inner pragmatist and the stubborn extremists in his own party, but we can fairly expect a rollback of universal health care in favor of the rough marketplace, and at least a partial dismantling of regulations on banks, extractive industries and whatever other industries squeal about job-killing red tape. We can expect a lowering of the safety net, especially a retrenchment of Medicaid and a marketization of Medicare. His deficit plan will rely on draconian spending cuts and on the supply-side superstition that tax cuts automatically produce growth. Romney will be somewhat more enthusiastic about oil and coal, and will put less faith in renewables. The military will not want. You can expect another Scalia or two on the Supreme Court, the defunding of Planned Parenthood and a social agenda aimed at appeasing the evangelical base, mainly by letting the states decide. On foreign policy Romney has gravitated toward Obama’s caution, and I tend to believe him, if only because whoever is president will have his hands too full at home to embark on a war in Iran or Syria as long as it is avoidable. [See footnote 2]