He was returning to the scene of his '68 triumph when he had inflicted the first crippling wound on Lyndon Johnson.

"Pat, you don't have to win up here, you know," he assured me. "All you have to do is beat the point spread."

"Beat the point spread" is a good description of what Donald Trump has to do in Monday night's debate.

With only a year in national politics, he does not have to show a mastery of foreign and domestic policy details. Rather, he has to do what John F. Kennedy did in 1960, and what Ronald Reagan did in 1980.

He has to meet and exceed expectations, which are not terribly high. He has to convince a plurality of voters, who seem prepared to vote for him, that he's not a terrible risk, and that he will be a president of whom they can be proud.

He has to show the country a Trump that contradicts the caricature created by those who dominate our politics, culture, and press.

The Trump on stage at Hofstra University will have 90 minutes to show that the malicious cartoon of Donald Trump is a libelous lie.