SIXTY DAYS

The conventions are over.  The Republican convention was bizarre, the Democratic convention pretty much the sort of successful event one would expect from a collection of grown-up professionals.  Now the campaign begins [I feel like the psychiatrist at the end of Portnoy's Complaint.  -- By the way, does everyone understand the witty pun on the word "complaint?"]  I have donated the maximum allowed by law first to the Obama primary campaign and then to the Obama election campaign, so there is nothing for it but to just check Nate Silver's 538.com every day for reassurance.  Several comentators to my earlier blog about probabilities have cleared up my confusion about what Silver's statistical estimates actually are.  If I understand all of this even marginally, each day that passes with no essential change will result in a slight uptick in his estimate of Obama's re-election chances.  Sixty days.  Sixty nights a bit more sleepless that usual.  Romney will not crush Obama in the debates, nor, I imagine, will Obama destroy Romney, but from Obama's perspective, a draw is a win, since he is leading.  My mean-spirited fantasies have turned to speculation about the self-immolating anguish that the Republicans will suffer when they awake on November 7th to discover that their worst nightmare [to quote Sylvester Stallone] has possession of the White House for four more years.

I will now turn my restless energies to Bennett College.