Tonight, America will be treated to the ultimate winner take all sporting extravaganza, the seventh game of a World Series. Roughly a week later, America will experience the ultimate winner take all political extravaganza, Election Day. Let's compare and contrast, shall we?
Tomorrow night, either the Cleveland Indians or the Chicago Cubs will become world champions. If it's the Indians, it will be their first such championship in 68 years. If it's the Cubs, it will their first in 108 years. Either way, there will be great, unbridled joy unleashed throughout the land. Someone will be chosen as series MVP for their outstanding play. Fans of the losing team will be crushed, having come so close after all those many years only to come up short. A minority of them will rail against the umpires, others will bemoan the bias of Fox Sports for unashamedly rooting against their team. But most of them will take the loss in stride since they have so much experience dealing with defeat and disappointment. We will be treated to images from inside the winning clubhouse of grown men giddy with victory, dousing each other with expensive champagne, acting for all the world to see like teenage boys after a victory over a cross town rival on Homecoming night. Baseball fans will rejoice to see the entire nation focused on "our" game. But as the clock strikes midnight, and all of the commentators have finished giving us their take on the game, we will all be a bit sad since pitchers and catchers don't report to spring training for another three and half months!
Next week this time either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will become President of the United States. An election that took what seemed like years and took us to depths never before probed in our moral and ethical history will finally be over. Either way, there will be no joy, unbridled or otherwise released throughout the country, only profound relief that it is finally over. There will be no MVP selected. Supporters of the losing candidate will be enflamed with anger. A majority of them will rail against the entire rigged process and claim that the election was stolen from them, others will rail against either Fox News or the mainstream media for their blatant bias. Hopefully, only a minority of them will take to the streets, Molotov cocktails in hand. We will be embarrassed to see the winning candidate make his/her victory speech. But, when the clock strikes midnight, nobody. . .and I mean nobody will be sad that the 2020 New Hampshire primary is 39 months away. Why? Because for the next four years we will be lead by either this. . .
We will have far more immediate things to be sad about.
Or, this. . .
