Well hell like the boys in Love's Labor's Lost I broke my vow of abstinence. I peeked. I left it muted, but there was Sen. McCain, looking imperial and probably barking jingoistically but I wanted (needed) no confirmation of that. Then came a Matthew Yglesias tweet about a "cranky deranged warmonger." Yep. And then Rachel Maddow was looking super wound up so I unmuted the damn thing and therein lay my mistake. What she said ruined my whole evening, something about having a "really robust debate" in this country about foreign policy etc etc.
A debate among whom? The persuadable portion of the electorate is maybe 3 percent, and they're scattered throughout 50 states, only five or six of which are critical to the presidential election. The political math begins to read like quantum physics. We've got Bob in Ohio on whom the Obama and Romney campaigns are spending tens of millions to force a final goddamn decision and then there's Louise in Florida and Jack in Iowa and that's about it. A billion bucks later and no minds change and we'll have a vote. And Obama will win, because he's already leading in most swing states and voters aren't changing their minds.
So there's an underlying contentment within me. I'm not panicked. Romney is doomed. On the other hand it really would have been pleasant to have had a "really robust debate" in this country about something, before the levers came down. But it's not going to happen. Instead we'll get two more months of Mitt Romney's remorselessly perfidious lies. And if those lies get him close? It'll be even worse next time.