The Magic Number?

No, this is not the October surprise so widely rumored. You'll have noticed the earth refusing to so much as twitch while this was uploading.

I suspect that anyone reading this, the first post, is expecting something pithy and clever regarding the current presidential debate in Miami. Sometimes that may happen, but this isn't all politics, all the time. You'll get variety here, that you will.

For example... chatting with a friend earlier this evening, the first words out of her mouth were, "Clinch already!" - referring not to GWB, but the New York Yankees. Much like the Distinguished Opposition in the baseball debate, John Kerry is looking to "close" late, but there is no wild card in the Electoral College. (In the old old days, they at least let the loser be Vice President.)

No matter. Tonight's debate is the first in a three-game series, and Kerry's counting on his Yale-honed debating skills to make up a few points in the standings. My personal experience in school was that the "champion debaters" were the ones who best aped the favored opinions of their instructors. Trying that approach may surprise him here; appealing to those whom he naturally disdains (AKA us) is difficult for him. (It's turned him orange this past week.) And there's many more of us than there are of intellectual elites and Mass Media Members.

No doubt, people will clap for Kerry...but they'll vote for W.