1. It’s Thursday, November 3, 2016. The election is five days away. The Mets’ Opening Day game against Atlanta is 151 days away.

2. There are people who say baseball is boring. Really.

But for those who love it, in the words of my friend and former colleague Chris Isidore, a bad baseball game is better than most Super Bowls. And don’t get me started about other sports that don’t offer four hours of did-what-the-hell-just-happened-sink-my-team-for-good moments.

So I’m happy tonight for Chicagoland, where I went to college, and for the Cubs fans, of whom I know several.

But most of all, I’m proud to love the greatest game in the world. If you found any part of Game Seven boring, check to see if you have a pulse. It was riveting from leadoff batter Dexter Fowler’s home run to the desperation two-out threat Cleveland mounted that fell just short.

Perhaps it’s silly to talk about Greatest Games of All Time. But I’m hard-pressed right now to think of a better one in the 21st century. Perhaps the sixth game of the 2011 World Series between St. Louis and Texas.

I think the double curse of the franchises added to the weight. For the second time in 20 years, Cleveland took the World Series to extra innings in Game Seven, only to come up a run short.

So now Cleveland has the double misfortune of having just missed the chance to end a 68-year drought and now having Major League Baseball’s longest championship drought.

3. The Cubs went 108 years between titles. I’ve been to Wrigley Field several times and seen some pretty bad teams.

And what sticks out in my mind is a 14-4 loss to Cincinnati in 1976, a year the Reds won the World Series. It was a beautiful sunny May Saturday on the North Side, and the park was teeming with Cubs fans – soaking up sun in the bleachers, enjoying a day of baseball in the grandstand.

Forget the score. Forget the fact that one of baseball’s dynasties was across the diamond. There was a crush of people outside one of the best places to watch baseball ever. They were disappointed but not disloyal. They climbed onto the El platforms at Addison and Sheridan and went home, ready to come back to Wrigley and cheer on the Cubbies another day.

I suspect some of those fans are no longer around – it was 40 years ago. And sometime this week in Chicago, their descendants will trek to the cemetery and place one of those W flags at the gravestone.

Baseball isn’t just the most interesting game. It’s the one that connects the generations of a family better than any other. Cub fans know that.

And now they know what it’s like to be a World Series champion.

1. It’s still Tuesday, November 1, 2016. The election is still seven days away.

2. Starbucks put out its holiday season cups today. They’re gorgeous, with the artist using a single line to connect all the people on the planet. And, of course, they don’t mention Christmas.

That will have the War on Christmas Warriors all in a schvitz.

Now, remember, a year ago, when Starbucks did a plain red cup for the holidays, Trump picked up on the fury stoked by Fox News and the Breitbart crowd. He said that when he was elected, everyone would say “Merry Christmas!”

Starbucks chief Howard Schultz is rightly proclaiming that a cup like this is meant to be “a symbol of our shared values.”

But, not being as magnanimous as Schultz, I can’t help but hope there’s also a middle finger somewhere in that drawing for Trump and the haters he enables.

3. The reason I’m writing a second post is something that I discovered in an assignment for my Media Writing class at William Paterson University in New Jersey.

The assignment was a blog post in which the students needed to express an opinion on the election. It didn’t have to be for against Clinton or Trump. It could be about the campaign, yard signs, ads or whatever.

Two of my students were down on the whole idea of voting. And they expressed it this way: It doesn’t matter how I vote, because the Electoral College will decide the election the way it wants.

The way the posts were written made the Electoral College seem like a star chamber – a bunch of people sitting somewhere who will take the election results and decide if they’re OK. If not, they’ll install the other candidate as President of the United States.

So, first, a big zero goes to social studies teachers who have somehow let kids have a complete misunderstanding of the election. I took it upon myself to explain how the Electoral College works.

Secondly, even though my students couldn’t have been any more than kindergarteners in 2000, that election has scarred them – and probably the nation as a whole.

The fact that Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush never sat well with a lot of people. That, and the fact that the Bush presidency included the Iraq War and the worst economic crisis since the Depression, undermined faith in the system more than anything else.

The solution to that isn’t abstaining from voting. But that’s going to be hard to sell to a bunch of 20-year-olds. They don’t believe it, and their interest isn’t all that great, either.

And it’s difficult for me to sell them on the idea of participating in democracy without advocating a position. Part of our problem right now is that disenfranchising people is a key political strategy for one side – to the point that voting is seen as a political statement in itself.

So I’m going to start simply. By explaining that the Electoral College is a stupid name. That the system is designed this way for a reason. That if you believe it’s a lousy system, the only way it will ever change is if more people vote and clamor for that change.

And that Electoral is not a 15-point underdog against Alabama on Saturday.

1. It’s Tuesday, November 1, 2016. It is seven days until Election Day. It is the Feast of All Saints.

2. I’d still love to see the Cubs win in seven. The odds are long, but if that’s the only long-shot bet that comes in this month, I’d be relieved and happy.

3. I spent Halloween night at the movies, in very large part because I’m not a fan of trick-or-treating. If that makes me Halloween’s version of Ebenezer Scrooge, I’m happy to accept that.

The movie I saw was “Denial” and at its center is true, unmitigated, serious horror. For those unaware, the film depicts the trial of an Emery University professor who wrote a book about Holocaust denial. She was sued for libel in the U.K. by one of these morons.

In Britain, as Trump has happily pointed out, the burden of proof for libel is on the accused – the professor had to prove she didn’t libel the denier rather than, as here, he didn’t have to prove the case.

“Denial” is an OK movie. It holds your interest. The acting is good. Occasionally, there’s background music when there shouldn’t be – just seeing Auschwitz should be powerful enough.

But seeing this movie was hardly the way to forget my troubles.

4. And right now, those troubles are my anxiety about this election.

The odds are still 3-to-1 in Hillary Clinton’s favor, according to Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com. They’re a little less than 9-to-1 in her favor, according to The New York Times.

But they’ve been dropping. They were falling even before last Friday’s disaster, when the director of the FBI picked the scab of the Clinton email controversy with his letter to Congress.

Normally, as a bleeding-heart liberal, I fear the worst in an election. It’s usually hyperbole.

I don’t feel that way in 2016.

A Trump win would empower the very people depicted in “Denial.” There’s already a depressing, frightening rise in anti-Semitism as seen as Trump’s rallies and in social media. That’s coupled with surging hatred of others – Muslims, Hispanics, Asians.

If you want to read a depressing story about the looming Age of Trump, read this one from the Times that’s likely in the paper this morning. It’s about the hostility the founder of the yogurt maker Chobani faces because he is a Kurdish immigrant, and is putting action to words by hiring refugees.

In a normal world, Hamdi Ulukaya’s story is feel-good. If those making threats were as Christian as they say they are, they would recognize that Ulukaya is doing God’s work.

But they’re not. The fire lit by their anger about whatever it is they’re angry about rages out of control. It is like one of those wildfires in California, except there is no percentage of it that seems to be contained.

They hate those they believe have taken over American life. They would have been revolted by Halloween at my nearby mall, where kids of all shades were decked in costumes of their heroes and villains with their parents trying to ride herd.

Again, I’m not a Halloween fan, but this was beautiful. It’s what America means to me.

All of that is at risk in this election. What I saw last night shouldn’t be otherness. The people on the other side of this want that. They fantasize about a return to a time that can’t possibly exist again – not without hurting people who have made strides in our society because we’ve worked hard to overcome bias.

When Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables,” they took it as a badge of honor. They’ve been lying in wait for the chance to lash back at those who they see advancing with help they didn’t get. African-Americans. Latinos. Asian-Americans. Whoever.

5. There are those who can’t imagine a Holocaust or the kind of mass madness that tarnishes history books here. They’ll deny that the people who support Trump are that evil.

But the evidence is there.

It starts with the threat, echoed by the jackass candidate himself, to imprison his opponent.

Despite all the fanatical statements on social media, on comment pages and anywhere else you can imagine, Hillary Clinton has committed no crime worthy of incarceration. A cottage industry has spent a quarter-century fouling the water about her.

Yes, she hasn’t helped it – is there any chance we can go back in time and tell her to lose the e-mail server idea? But her penchant for secrecy is likely a conditioned reflex to the siege she’s been under since becoming a national figure.

The easiest promise for Trump to keep if he wins election next week is to try to imprison Hillary Clinton. Especially if his efforts to rip up Obamacare and the Paris climate agreements stall for any amount of time.

The scum who support him are clamoring for it. The “Hillary for Prison” signs are not far from here. At some of Trump’s rallies, there have been calls for her execution or murder. One suggestion came from the candidate himself.

It’s a short step from jailing a political opponent to going after others who supported her. To going after those who don’t fit their description of an American. It’s why they love the wall with Mexico idea. It’s why they expect Trump to deport every last undocumented immigrant.

It’s a road to perdition. It’s the end of this country’s experiment of trying to form a more perfect union by creating a placating of the decrepit.

So I might have gotten out of answering the doorbell several times by going to see “Denial.” But I didn’t put my fear of what could happen in seven days in abeyance.

This can’t happen. But my fear is that maybe I’m in denial about that.

It’s October 28, 2016. The election is 11 days away but, as the calendar would have it, 20 Questions Friday is at hand.

20 Questions Friday is the post in which I ask questions and the answers are – whatever. Like ‘em, don’t like ‘em, ponder ‘em, go to the next page on the Internet.

They’re just what’s going through my head as this final weekend of October draws nigh. I hope yours is a good one.

Here we go:

— I know there’s a lot of sentiment that this is a done deal for Hillary Clinton, but aren’t the poll trends just a little too close for comfort?

— If you have early voting in your state, or are voting absentee, have you voted yet?

— Does an annual U.S. economic growth rate of 2.9% sound OK to you? 

— How the hell did the Bundys and their acolytes get acquitted for their armed seizure of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon?

— Now that they’ve gotten a pass, will the Bundys or their ilk go for bigger game, like a national monument or agency office?

— Do Web sites still measure “eye stickiness”?

— Will trumpets sound from heaven if Darrell Issa loses his House seat from California?

— It makes all the sense in the world, so is there a snowball’s chance in hell that Obamacare will ever get the public option that could make it more affordable? 

— If the Cubs close out the Indians this weekend at Wrigley Field, would that celebration be as raucous as the one in Chicago when they made it to the World Series for the first time in 71 years?

— Are you celebrating Diwali on Sunday? (If so, Happy Diwali!)

— Has Trump sued The New York Times yet for publishing the improper sexual advance stories? Wasn’t that suit “imminent” two weeks ago?

— When you were a 10-year-old, did you or your friends threaten to sue someone if they said something bad about you?

— Do you put mayonnaise on cold-cut sandwiches?

— If Hillary Clinton wins and the Republicans hold on to the House, can we find two years worth of ways to show Jason Chaffetz for the jackass he is?

— How much longer will this period of relatively cheap gasoline continue?

— Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? (ninth in a series of song-title questions)

— Is Putin taking a big chance on this WikiLeaks campaign against Clinton, considering he’s No. 1 with a bullet on her international shit list if she wins?

— How soon after Halloween (which is Monday) will Starbucks start using its 2016 holiday cups?

— Will Starbucks piss off Fox News’ War on Christmas warriors by not specifically mentioning the holiday on a freakin’ coffee cup?

— No reflection on Starbucks, but is there any chance that Halloween can be abolished?

1. It’s Thursday, October 27, 2016. It’s 12 days until the election.

2. Highly recommended: New York Times photographer Bryan Denton’s harrowing account of what it’s like on the front lines of the Iraqi Army’s assault on Mosul. 

Denton was wounded by an ISIS suicide car bomb; the injuries, whose gruesomeness is mentioned in this story, fortunately were relatively minor.

But Denton’s description of the difficulty these Iraqis face in reclaiming their city is a reminder of how horrible this situation is. And it’s a good reminder why President Obama has been extremely reluctant to make a major commitment of American forces to this region.

Yes, America kind of made the mess. But it really can’t undo it by getting its military deeply involved again.

3. Just want to revisit my thoughts on Obamacare from the other day.

I compared this year’s large hikes to Valley Forge. The point I was trying to make was that Washington made adjustments to his revolution and the Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton should she win, will need to make adjustments to theirs.

Some Affordable Care Act proponents argue that the hikes averaging between 22% and 25% are just a catchup from the low rates offer when the healthcare exchanges were initially launched. And they say a majority of purchasers will get subsidies that will hide the increases from their bank accounts.

But even if the problem is merely political perception and not the churn in health care, the bill’s backers – and, trust me, I’m one of them – need to do a better job of managing expectations.

You can’t say, in the third year in, that the double-digit percentage rate increase is kinda what we expected – not for a program about which Americans remain very, very skeptical. It just makes it look bad for the law.

All that said, the facts are that Obamacare has provided coverage for 20 million Americans, that it has eliminated some of the gross inequities in the health care system that existed before its passage, and that the country is healthier for its existence.

Valley Forge was a rough patch. But the country is still standing. I want future generations to say that about Obamacare in the 23rd century.

4. If the economy – and not grievances about the direction of the nation – were a bigger issue in 2016, the two government reports coming out between now and Election Day would loom large.

Gross domestic product, the broadest reading of the nation’s economy, for the summer months will be announced by the Commerce Department tomorrow.

Economists are optimistic. According to a survey conducted by Reuters, they expect the annual growth rate to come in at 2.5%. That would be quite a bit better than the 1.4% rate reported this spring and the less than 1% growth seen in the winter.

Even if the number is 2.5%, Trump will raise a fuss. He seems to believe the United States, the world’s most developed economy, should grow at the 6% and 7% pace of still developing nations such as China and India.

But you wouldn’t think you’d have to tell a guy who allegedly graduated from Wharton that the U.S. really can’t grow that fast. The pace couldn’t last long, and a massive economy that grows too fast winds up having to slow down – or stop.

The idea that the Federal Reserve and administrations of both parties operate under is that 3% growth is ideal. If we hit 2.5%, after being so anemic earlier this year, that’s a good sign.

The other report that will be closely watched is the Labor Department’s on October employment.

That comes out a week from tomorrow, four days before the election.

Key to that report is the net number of jobs created, known as nonfarm payroll. Last month, that number was 156,000.

That’s not terrible – hell, terrible is when it’s going down! But it’s not as robust as economists would like to see.

What they’d like to see is about 200,000 jobs created. Anything more than that is great. Anything below is disappointing.

The number that people tend to focus on, the unemployment rate, tends to be a little wobbly – and not for the reasons Trump and the right wing imply, that it’s not accurate.

The rate, which was 5% in September, can be skewed by the number of people who are looking for work. If the economy shows signs of optimism, people who had put aside job searches might resume them – if that number overshadows the number of people actually getting jobs, the rate can go up.

But while Trump will squawk about these numbers no matter how good they are, GDP and jobs aren’t likely to have much impact on what happens on Nov. 8. Two reports won’t change – or even affirm – how people view the way the nation is headed.

If Trump somehow wins, though, they could be the high-water mark of an American economy sabotaged by its own people.

1. It’s Tuesday, October 25, 2016. It’s 14 days until the election.

2. Sometimes, when your team isn’t in the World Series, you don’t really care who wins.

But sometimes the team that you’d be happiest seeing win the Series other than your favorite team has a shot at it.

That’s how I feel about the Chicago Cubs.

As a New York Mets fan and a former student in Chicagoland, there are sympathies for the Cubs.

For one thing, the Mets have put a big hurt on Cub fans twice in my lifetime. In addition to last year’s blowout in the National League Championship Series, there’s 1969.

What’s arguably the greatest year in Mets history – what we fans call “The Miracle” – is the nadir of Cubdom. A team that included four Hall of Famers got stomped by Tom Seaver and the upstarts from Flushing.

Thus, there’s no ill will on our part. We owe no payback, unlike the way we’ll feel about the Giants next season. And, in fact, we kind of want to make amends for having to take something away.

So go, Cubs, go! And beat Cleveland! If it weren’t for that stupid logo, we might feel a little something for those fans, too.

3. Aside from the presidential campaign, the big news today is the announcement that health insurance premiums available as a result of the Affordable Care Act will rise as much as 25% in 2017.

(As always, the reporting of my former CNNMoney colleague Tami Luhby is invaluable on this.) 

Now most of those who rely on Obamacare won’t pay nearly that much more thanks to the subsidies that reduce premiums to a maximum of 10% of income.

But the churn in these numbers can’t be a good thing for anyone – for those who need health care and have to go get the subsidies, for the federal government that has to come up with the money for the subsidies and especially for those who don’t qualify for the subsidies.

For years, people complained about rising health care costs and the difficulty of getting and keeping insurance to pay those costs.

The Affordable Care Act attempts to deal with those complaints. Naturally, not everybody was satisfied. And that goes either way – those who were afraid of government involvement in what has been a private industry and some who thought this program, with its reliance of the private sector, didn’t go far enough.

So now, in it’s third year, does Obamacare face an existential crisis?

The program’s advocates strongly believe that this year’s big premium increases are an aberration – that this is just the program working out the bugs. Once companies settle into a pattern of making money from Obamacare, they’ll be loathe to change it.

But the next President – and, please, let it be Hillary Clinton – should probably think about tweaking the program. If only because of the public perception that it’s doing little to stop insurance rates from rising.

Clinton has suggested making some changes, including the possibility of offering Medicare to people at a younger age – a proposal that makes a lot of sense to a 62-year-old who’s only complaint would be bitterness that it didn’t happen sooner.

Obamacare is a revolutionary idea. And sometimes, like the American Revolution, you have moments of weakness – a Valley Forge winter.

This might be that moment for this idea. The question is whether it can get through this tough patch. You won’t know that until you find out if the revolution is successful.

It’s October 21, 2016. It is 18 days – or, expressing it the way it feels, e i g h t e e n   d a y s – until the election.

That all means it’s time for 20 Questions Friday. It’s a writing device that I thought would help me write Friday blog posts quickly and cleverly. The cleverly is subjective – you can decide. But it takes me just as long, if not longer, to come up with 20 questions as it does to write a 1,000-word screed.

Today’s title explained: Coach Dean Smith’s North Carolina basketball teams pioneered the idea of running out the clock with a lead. Smith, who passed away a few years ago, was a liberal Democrat in a place where that wasn’t especially cool. But I suspect if he had any idea of how to do it, he’d have figured out a way to tell Hillary Clinton.

Have a good weekend:

— To folks in Arizona, Georgia, Utah and Alaska, how does it feel to live in a swing state?

— Were Hillary Clinton’s debate beatdowns of Trump even more one-sided than the one Jed Bartlet administered to Rob Ritchie in season four of “The West Wing”?

— If Hillary Clinton really did have health and stamina issues, shouldn’t she get credit for how well she’s managed them and share any tips with the rest of us older people?

— How much pain are Cubs fans in knowing that their team is one win away from the World Series for the first time since 1945 – again?

— What do you think Steve Bartman is doing tomorrow and Sunday?

— Who in their right mind likes raking leaves?

— Did the strategists running the U.S.-backed Iraqi assault on ISIS in Mosul figure in the possibility that the thugs might counterattack in another place, like Kirkuk?

— When Trump invokes George Patton, why doesn’t he realize that Patton would have smacked his face for his ignorance?

— Should the Democrats run anti-Putin ads in an effort to seal the deal against Trump and the Republicans?

— Could the people who launched today’s distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack be categorized as terrorists?

— Has the Trump “Access Hollywood” tape revived any terrible memories in your life?

— Will AT&T buy Time Warner?

— Aren’t those electronic billboards on the sides of highways a dangerous distraction to drivers?

— Isn’t small print on any billboard a really stupid idea?

— Which of the 2016 debate moderators would you be pleased to see return for the 2020 debates?

— Are you already dreading the 2020 presidential debates?

— Once you read my former colleague Stacy Cowley’s compilation of statements from ex-Wells Fargo employees, would you agree that looking into possible criminal charges against the company’s management isn’t a bad idea? 

— Who’ll stop the rain? (eighth in a series of song-title questions)

— Aren’t you relieved that seeing Smokey Robinson trend on Twitter doesn’t mean what you feared it meant (and that he’s just launching a skin-care line)?

— Why is Smokey Robinson launching a skin-care line?

1. It’s Thursday, October 20, 2016. The election is 19 days away.

2. Trump really must hate America’s gambling meccas.

He wrecked Atlantic City by building massive casinos and then, amazingly, running them into the ground.

And now, with his performance in the third debate, Las Vegas has become the place where – unless something unthinkable happens in the next 19 days – his presidential ambitions rolled snake eyes.

Much is being made of his biggest gaffe of the night: His refusal to commit to the idea that the 2016 is on the up and up.

Because he’s so self-absorbed, he doesn’t realize why this scares the hell out of people.

It’s a core belief that our elections are fair and above board. We accept the results of elections – as I had to do in 1980 when Ronald Reagan won, and 2000 when, after all the mishegas  in Florida and the Supreme Court, Al Gore conceded to George W. Bush. You’re entitled to start working toward a different result next time the second after the race is declared over.

But you are not entitled to delegitimize the process in progress. It’s not only unethical, but I can’t see how it helps – if I were for Trump, why would I vote if the candidate thinks that vote won’t count?

And yet the election blunder is only one of many Trump made at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

He refuses to decouple himself from Vladimir Putin. I don’t know if he thinks Putin is a popular figure in this country. And maybe he thinks that Putin’s little footsie game with WikiLeaks has support around the nation.

But to defend the Russians against U.S. military and government security agencies time and time again makes him seem like the Siberian Candidate. He looks as though he’s in Putin’s pocket. He sounds as though he doesn’t care how anybody got a hold of the John Podesta e-mails or DNC documents, because as long as it helps him, all’s fair.

It’s a point he could mute Hillary Clinton about. All he has to say is that hacking by foreign governments is a terrible thing, no matter who does it, and that he will make certain Russia or whoever does it pays a price.

Trump can’t bring himself to do that. Maybe he’s not sucking up to Putin. But it sure looks that way.

3. There were lots of other bad moments.

He didn’t help himself with his answer about abortion, and didn’t – as he had previously – backtrack on his assertion made to Chris Matthews that women who have abortions should be punished.

He was ill advised to trot out his one word of Spanish when describing some of the people he’d deport – ‘bad hombres,” as if that’s what the core of those in the country without documentation are.

His wall of denial about women who’ve accused him of inappropriate acts resulted in him saying that he hasn’t even apologized to his wife, Melania, about his action – even though she has said that he apologized.

And, of course, proving Clinton’s point that he’s too thin-skinned to be trusted with nuclear weapons, when she got in a dig about how he would try to avoid paying additional Social Security taxes under her proposal, he interjected “What a nasty woman!”

He can dish it out, but he can’t take it. Bully, first class.

4. Clinton reminded me of Muhammad Ali.

She floated like a butterfly around questions that might have pinned her down – on whether she enabled her husband’s own misbehavior toward women, on whether she told a Brazilian bank that she advocated open borders, and more.

But she stung like a bee when she got under Trump’s skin. Calling him Putin’s puppet, attacking his use of Chinese steel, even by saying that he was hosting “Celebrity Apprentice” while she was helping President Obama nail Osama bin Laden.

Her face didn’t betray much in the way of emotion. There was none of the grimacing and constant interruption that you got from the other side of the split screen.

Is this thing over?

One would think. One would hope.

But who knows what will happen in the next 19 days?

One thing’s for sure: The faster Trump leaves our lives, the better our days will be.

1. It’s Tuesday, October 18, 2016. It’s 21 days until the election.

2. President Kennedy’s success spawned the rise of “Kennedys” around the world – politicians who were young, charismatic and seemed to have a brain. For generations, anyone who fit that bill was that country’s Kennedy.

Now it seems as though there’s a new model for such a leader – Barack Obama.

Canada’s Justin Trudeau – whose father was spoken of as Canada’s Kennedy – fits the bill as a young, dynamic leader in the mould of our President.

And today, Obama is hosting another one, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. After a day of talks about various issues, the President will host the Prime Minister and his wife at what is likely to be the final state dinner of the Obama administration.

What I’d like to see from this generation of leaders is Obama’s determined effort to attack problems. Admittedly, he didn’t get very far with many of them – we haven’t solved immigration, for instance.

But he tried. If the new generation of Obamas cropping up around the world take on such thorny problems as refugees, climate change and economic inequality, that will be an incredible contribution to civilization.

3. Way back in the spring, when the nominees of both parties were chosen, it was easy to see that this campaign would not focus on issues.

The personality of the Republican candidate made it clear that this would be a third-degree mud sling, especially with such a long-standing target as Hillary Clinton.

This is reflected in the fact that there are so many issues that have either been mentioned in passing or not even mentioned at all in the first two debates.

Too much of those debates have been devoted to Trump’s crisis of the moment or one more effort to get Clinton to say something about the e-mail thing. If it wasn’t for the instantly famous Ken Bone, we wouldn’t have had any discussion at all about energy policy.

So, with only modest hope of success, here are ten things I’d love to see come up tomorrow night in the final debate:

— SOCIAL SECURITY: I can’t remember if the words “Social Security” have even been uttered in three hours of debates. But for a generation of Americans (my hand is raised), this is a big deal. It was announced today that recipients will get a 0.3% raise next year. That’s almost in the “why bother” category. I’d like to hear what the candidates have to say about sustaining Social Security as people my age begin to take it – for instance, should the ceiling on income that’s taxed to pay for the program be raised?

— IMMIGRATION: To Chris Wallace’s credit, he has said this will be a subject area he’ll raise tomorrow night. And, given its prominence in this campaign, it’s a wonder it hasn’t come up before. Make Trump defend his idiotic wall. Make Clinton explain how we’ll deal with those who are without documentation in a humane manner while placating those who believe “illegal immigration” is eroding their lives.

— CLIMATE CHANGE: One candidate has a plan to combat the ravages of it. One candidate says it’s a hoax. It would be better to hear pro-and-con ideas about solutions. If Trump persists on pooh-poohing it, let him say it in front of millions of millennials, who believe this is a make-or-break issue.

— SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: Chris Wallace has said he will bring up the Supreme Court in the debate – again, a good call on his part. On this particular issue, you might think last year’s ruling resolved it. But would Trump appoint justices who think they can undo that ruling? Does Clinton believe this issue is resolved, or are there other things that can be done to secure this right?

— INFRASTRUCTURE: Both Clinton and Trump have talked about the need to rebuild the country. But what are their priorities? Highways or improvements in alternative transportation? How would they secure and strengthen the nation’s power grid?

— ISRAEL: For all the discussion about Syria, Iraq and ISIS, we’ve heard very little from the candidates about the linchpin of all Middle East crises. Relations between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu are, to put it mildly, strained. Would either Clinton or Trump deal with the Israeli leadership better? Will either of them push to get a two-state solution to the conflict that has plagued this region for 70 years?

— EDUCATION: Other than Clinton’s focus on free college and student debt, what leads up to college has been largely ignored in this campaign – and certainly in the debates. Trump has indicated his support for an expansion of charter schools. Clinton, who is backed by teachers’ unions, wants stronger public schools. Common Core is a major issue in communities around this country – what do these two think about it?

— ABORTION: Yikes! Other than Mike Pence’s attempt to inflict his beliefs on everyone in the vice presidential debate, this hasn’t come up. There was that interview, which Trump eventually walked back, in which he said women should face a penalty for having an abortion. This is his chance to say what he really thinks should happen. And it’s a way for Clinton to say what should be the argument of abortion rights advocates: No woman grows up wanting to have an abortion, and the ready availability of contraception has helped reduce abortion’s incidence. But the option should be there for women who feel the need.

— CRIMINAL REFORM: This has come up briefly in the discussions about race. But there has been a bipartisan effort to reduce the level of incarceration in this country. How do the candidates feel about this? How do they feel about the use of privately run, for-profit prisons? Do they support President Obama’s effort to offer clemency to people who have committed non-violent drug offenses?

— CONGRESS: Capitol Hill’s hostility to Barack Obama ends, by law, on Jan. 20. Will the House and Senate have the same acrimony for his successor? How will they deal with it? How does Trump expect to work with Congress when the man who’s Speaker of the House -assuming the Republicans retain control – has been the subject of some of his tweet blasts? How does Clinton expect to work with Congress when John McCain – assuming he’s re-elected to his Senate seat from Arizona – says Republicans will block any nominee she makes to the Supreme Court?

Maybe you have other issues that should come up in an honest presidential debate. Alas, our chances of seeing the campaign we wanted went out the window when Trump went down the Trump Tower escalator into his miserable campaign more than a year ago.

It’s October 14, 2016. It’s 25 days until the election.

And it’s Friday, which means I’ll ask 20 questions. You can answer them. You can be amused. You can ignore them.

Hear me out:

— Does Michelle Obama really think she’s going to stay out of politics after she leaves the White House?

— Is English a second language for Trump?

— Were there no public speaking opportunities at those military schools Trump went to as a kid?

— Given their passion for the information released by WikiLeaks, do you think Trump supporters also look for bargains on TV sets and jewelry that “fell off the truck”?

— Is there going to be a day this month when there isn’t an October surprise?

— After seeing the “Access Hollywood” tape, is there anyone who’s not going to bust out laughing every time Trump says he has the temperament to be president?

— Tell the truth – did you know the name of Thailand’s king who just died?

— What Bob Dylan song should the Nobel committee play at the award ceremony in December?

— Will Dylan make a speech in Stockholm? Will he wear something formal?

— Can the Cubs overcome the final obstacle – the Dodgers – to get to their first World Series in my lifetime?

— If you’ve read The New York Times’ stories on the victims of U.S. torture in the war on terror, do they make as sick to your stomach as mine?

— Do you grill outdoors all year long, or is there a date when you put the stuff away?

— How long will it take to get North Carolina back to normal after all the flooding from Hurricane Matthew?

— Did the leaves in your neighborhood all seem to start changing color on Monday?

— Are you hoping we can avoid getting further involved in the Yemen conflict?

— Is there somewhere we can nickel-and-dime Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf so that we can get back some of the $130 million he’s taking away in forced retirement? Maybe open some fake accounts in his name?

— Didn’t Samsung test the Galaxy Note 7 for, say, being a fire hazard before putting it out on the market?

— Have you ever heard a rhetorical answer?

— Who let the dogs out? (seventh in a series of song-title questions)

— Will lifting the ban on Cuban cigars raise President Obama’s approval rating into the 70s?