As things stand now, it looks like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are running for president on basically the same platform: vote for me because I’m not my opponent.

Polls say no two candidates in history have been looked upon with greater disdain at this point in the process.

Or, as Harry Enten reported a few months ago in the blog FiveThirtyEight, "No past candidate comes close to Clinton, and especially Trump, in terms of engendering strong dislike a little more than six months before the election."

This may be the ultimate hold-your-nose election, but it’s important that people still vote.

Hopefully the candidates themselves will give people a reason to go to the polls when they debate in the fall and move beyond broad themes to specific policies.

Four years ago, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney participated in three debates in which they spelled out their views on the economy, the federal deficit and national debt, Social Security and other entitlement programs, unemployment and job creation, energy independence and immigration. Other domestic topics that came up included health care, tax reform and Washington gridlock.

They also debated foreign affairs, including the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya (which had taken place only that September), the proper role of the U.S. military, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the economic rise of China, how best to deal with Iran’s efforts to develop a nuclear program, relations with Israel and other countries and the ongoing War on Terror.

The candidates were respectful to one another while still managing to draw distinctions between themselves on the issues. They even managed to agree on some points, like the need for overhauling the nation’s convoluted tax code. Alas, another presidential election cycle is nearing an end and still nothing has been done on that issue or a lot of others. To that list we would include immigration, funding to combat the Zika virus and legislation to address gun violence; a bill to revamp the way the nation delivers mental health has passed the House and another is pending in the Senate.

We suspect Clinton and Trump won’t have much problem drawing distinctions between themselves, but it’s an open question whether they can do it respectfully, given the level of contempt that seems to exist.

When they get down to the nitty gritty of policy discussions – assuming they eventually do – one area we hope they talk about more than they have thus far is the corrupting influence of money in politics and the role campaign contributions that some credible candidates have likened to legalized bribery plays in gridlocking our system of passing laws.