WILDWOOD – It’s the grandmotherly face that shows up amid the madness that stops people in their tracks, and so it was this evening that a gentle voice accompanied a matronly tug at the sleeve of someone slung over the beach railing.

“Say a prayer,” she urged. “Say a prayer for our wonderful president.”

A hand extended as she passed a piece of paper into the hand of the other.

“The Miracle Prayer” was printed on the piece of paper.

There was a Trump lookalike regaling the crowd.

The Trump forces began to more animatedly engage their tormentors and vice versa, just before some cops showed up and stood around near the action.

It was mild back and forth, punctuated by profanity from both sides.

Trump backers deluged the area around the convention center.

A baffled face appeared over a pile of red knit hats.

“You need a hat,” said the man, eyeballing a blue tuft on someone else’s head.

Denied, the man rebuked, “You must not like Trump,” and shuffled off muttering.

In the local McDonalds, amid the stamp of trudging Trumpies, an older man wearing a Gary Snyder Pacific Northwest woodsman’s cap slouched in a booth smiling shyly and wisely at the passersby.

He caught an eye and waited patiently for the moment to make the point he seemed to be holding inside.

He said not a word but passed a piece of paper into the hands of the other.

It was the same “Miracle Prayer” shared by the woman on the boardwalk.

“If we said our prayers, we wouldn’t need politics,” the man said, face crinkling.

Outside on the streets of Wildwood, a sound truck paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) rounded a corner and barreled down Rio Grande toward the center of town.

“Jeff Van Drew: Fake Republican,” read the bold-typed message, furnishing a choice Van Drew quote from its recent archives: “I haven’t voted for him, I didn’t suppot him, I will not vote for him.”

Soon Van Drew would take the stage with Trump.