Here in the crazy final days of the presidential campaign, take a page from “Desiderata.’’

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste — and focus on policy proposals as you evaluate the candidates.’’ OK, I appended that final unpoetic phrase. Still, at a time when each side is frantically rolling burning barrels at the other, a quick policy overview can tell you something.

With Donald Trump, there’s a distinct pattern: He has repeatedly offered controversial schemes — and then, later, quietly walked back key aspects of those plans.

Take his oft-repeated promise that he’ll force Mexico to pay for the wall he wants along our southern border. Trump repeated that pledge even after Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, told him in August that Mexico wouldn’t pay. “They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for it,’’ he said in a Phoenix speech.

Fast forward to Trump’s October 22 speech in Gettysburg, when he announced that his End Illegal Immigration Act “fully funds the construction of a wall on our southern border.’’ Trump now says Mexico will reimburse us for that expense later. (Maybe after they buy the Brooklyn Bridge.)

Trump also said repeatedly that he would deport all the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, a promise that made him even more anti-immigrant than his GOP primary rivals. Then, in August, in the same Phoenix speech that included his reassertion about Mexico paying for his wall, Trump abandoned his deport-them-all pledge. Near the end of a blustery speech, the GOP nominee said that once his list of get-tougher immigration measures was in place, “then and only then will we be in a position to consider the appropriate disposition of those individuals who remain.’’

During the primary season, Trump proposed tax cuts so large that almost every fiscal watchdog sounded alarms. The nomination secured, Trump revised his plan, shrinking those tax cuts. Still, even the revised proposal would increase the national debt by $5.3 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, bringing the debt to an exceedingly dicey 105 percent of Gross Domestic Product.

In a similarly cynical way, Trump has gone to Appalachian coal country and pledged he’ll put that industry back to work, something that requires wishing away both global warming and the cheaper coal available elsewhere.

For her part, Hillary Clinton has hardly been a model of consistency. She has, for example, flip-flopped on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and then been untruthful about her previous pro-TPP statements. In 2014, she reversed herself on the Iraq war, calling her pro-war vote a mistake. And she has switched from supporting civil unions in 2008 to being a backer of gay marriage, though that’s a fairly common evolution.

But Clinton’s proposals are more honest than her Republican rival’s. Her new-spending plans, which include family leave and free college tuition for middle-class families, aren’t huge: around $150 billion a year, or $1.5 trillion over a decade. She says she’ll pay for that by raising taxes on upper earners and has largely specified how. Doing so would prove a hard political slog, certainly, but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that Clinton, unlike Trump, has been relatively realistic about costs and consequences.

In contrast with Trump’s $5.3 trillion bucket of red ink, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Clinton’s plans would increase national indebtedness by only $200 billion over a decade, bringing that debt to 86 percent of GDP, compared to Trump’s 105 percent. Unlike Trump, Clinton hasn’t pandered to coal country, but rather has offered a plan to stabilize coal communities, retrain miners, and try to catalyze new economic opportunities for their region.

This isn’t a close choice. One candidate has taken voters seriously. One has played them for dupes.

Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.