Are we there yet? A debate post-mortem. Did we learn anything?

Full disclosure. I HAD to watch last night's debate on DVR. There's an American Presidential election every four years. The Cubs are on the brink of history. Easy call.

Let's get this out of the way. I think Hillary will win. Wow, that's like the opening line to an AA meeting. But I think there are ways that, in the next 20 days, she can still pull a defeat from the jaws of victory. Read on.

Pretty much almost anyone who's last name isn't Trump thought Hills won the debate last night. More broadly, pretty much anyone who watched ANY of the debates thought Hillary won all of them. In any sort of normal universe, those laws of physics apply. But the Donald is in many ways the physical personification of the Death Star. "That's no moon". He has, for better or worse, brought a new and previously unseen gravity (not to be confused with gravitas) to this election season, and there does exist the possibility that a fundamental change in something elemental, like gravity, can change the long-standing equations that have applied in the past to political physics.

The popular press was up in arms last night over the Don's refusal to preemptively accept the results of the upcoming election. It was a classic dick Trump move, and c'mon folks, did you expect anything less? But I was a bit surprised, not with Trump, who's lost the ability to shock (me) with anything he says (I'd long since abandoned any close attention to his "rhetoric"), but with the uniformity of "shocked, I'm shocked" response of the media, to what appeared to be a typical over-the-top Trumpian comment. And that, in turn, leads to the alt-universe idea of a "rigged" process.

Trump may lay claim to discovering America, but it was really Bernie who brought the idea of a rigged process into this election's lexicon (he more frequently referred to it as a "rigged economy"). And the BIG problem with this, in my view, is that he (Bernie) was proven RIGHT. Ugh. Early in the Wikileaks e-mail dump were memos from the Democratic National Committee (with friends like that, Hillary almost didn't need Trump) essentially confirming what most already suspected, that Debbie Wasserman Schultz (soon to be employed by the Clinton Foundation) and the DNC were in cahoots with Team Clinton from the start, conspiring to block any and all paths to the nomination from anyone other than Goldman Sachs. Trump just simply picked up the leftover conspiracy after Bernie folded and has run with it. It galvanizes the Trump crowd, and still maybe captures some of the Feel the Bern group that feel compelled to deny Clinton the final prize. I think it's only a few folks, but how "few" is "few", is as opaque as Bill Clinton's question of the definition of "is". Ugh again.

The second concern as we enter the eighth inning of this political World Series is the possibility that the election may be more "Brexit" than "business as usual". Although in the rear view mirror of most, the Anglophile in me still marvels at how essentially EVERY "reputable" poll of Britons voting on Britain staying in the EU has them staying, not heading for the brexits (hah, pun). As the late John McLaughlin liked to say, WRONG!

The concept of "groupthink" is nothing new in American politics or government. Think the Bay of Pigs, or Iraq, as examples of where all the smart money went the opposite way of reality. I'm not willing to bet that this time's the same, but I'm saying that it's hard to see the black swan until it's sitting at the Resolute desk with a supermodel on his lap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolute_desk

Wrapping things up before I get back to more important issues of the day (#GoCubsGo), I wanted to close with a musing about last night's Sealy commercial masquerading as political discourse. A simple one word description of what separates Hillary and the Donald's style is "hedge". Not hedge as in "hedge fund", but hedge as in a speaking style. Hillary, the attorney, hedges everything. "Do you love your grandchildren?". "Well, can you clarify 'love'". Donald, lacking any gap between ego and mouth, "I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. I just kiss. I don't even wait". I can't say "ugh" enough. I think a lot of American's are more used to being around people that don't hedge, and frankly, look warily upon those that do hedge with an element of mistrust. I don't know if that little tidbit will matter, but I don't really pretend to know when a black swan is around the corner.

Did I know that the Cubs would come back from a tied game with a grand slam?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/sports/baseball/chicago-cubs-los-angeles-dodgers-miguel-montero.html?_r=0

Did I think the Cubs would beat San Francisco in the bottom of the ninth?

https://youtu.be/j8IB9kueOUE

It's not over 'til it's over. Or as Joe Maddon says, "it's 27 outs". My advice to the concerned? Stay engaged, and buckle your seat belt, we may encounter turbulence. Thanks for reading!