This is normally the point in the election cycle where I just can’t help myself from using inappropriate language, lashing out at the sheer stupidity of the candidates while I wonder if there even is a leader for the confused, misled, under-educated country we’ve become.  I thought it could have been Barack, but he couldn’t figure a way around the stymie, (not the beloved Little Rascals character whose signed photo hangs in my daughter’s guest house), and fundamentally uncooperative posturing of the Republican Congress.

I expected Thursday night’s debate to be a circus.  I found a place that was willing to sell me a small bag of popcorn for twelve bucks and a cone of cotton candy for nine, took them home and sat on an uncomfortable wooden bench after lighting a couple of dusty-elephant-scented Yankee candles.  Although there were elements one would find under the big top, (a crowded arena waiting breathlessly for a bloody or fatal misstep and a lot of horseshit to name two), not requiring the candidates and the moderators to wear red noses and floppy shoes and to emerge, single file from a brightly painted Mini Cooper, almost put a damper on the entire evening for me…thank goodness for Donald Trump.