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?

1. It’s Thursday, October 13, 2016. The election is 26 days away.

2. The title is my contribution to the celebration of Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in literature.

Has there ever been a Nobel literature winner whose work is as popularly known? Maybe Steinbeck, because so many people have read “The Grapes of Wrath.” Or Hemingway.

You can’t count Churchill, because his fame is as a political leader.

Anyway, Dylan fans have waited faithfully for this vindication of his literary chops. The tendency to dismiss him as “just a singer” never sat well with the true believers.

I’m not as rabid as some. But it’s hard not to like some song this man has written in the past 55 years. His triumph is a reason to smile.

Although, please don’t let that stupid IBM commercial run again.

3. Anti-Trump America is lighting up social media with all the revelations about sexual assault and Trump campaign’s litigious response.

Before we think that THIS is the last straw, remember that the “Access Hollywood” tape was the last straw, that the “that’s smart” he didn’t pay taxes was the last straw, that the phony foundation was the last straw, that the tweet storm against the former Miss Universe was the last straw, that trashing the Khans for a week was the last straw, that threatening to put his political opponent in jail was the last straw, etc.

There have been enough last straws to build a hut somewhere. As odious as Trump is, it doesn’t seem to affect his supporters. They are zombies drawn to his ranting.

So let me say it again: If there’s a tape of Trump trashing the people who support him, let’s see that.

The Lonesome Rhodes moment might be the only one that gets Trump close to being supported only by the racists, xenophobes, anti-Semites and misogynists Hillary Clinton was talking about when she mentioned “deplorables.”

Otherwise, we still have to endure 26 more days of this Trump crap.

1. It’s Tuesday, October 11, 2016. The election is 28 days away.

2. I want to commend Michael Luo, a New York Times editor, for his remarkable restraint.

Because if some dopey woman on the Upper East Side yelled “Go back to China!” to my wife and my two children because we blocked the sidewalk in the rain, she would have needed to make that phone call to police.

If you haven’t read Luo’s open letter to the woman and the reaction to it in the Times, here are the links: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/nyregion/to-the-woman-who-told-my-family-to-go-back-to-china.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/nyregion/go-back-to-china-readers-respond-to-racist-insults-shouted-at-a-new-york-times-editor.html

Some might think this is Trumpism manifest, even in a liberal bastion such as Manhattan.

But Trump didn’t create the racism. He used it. It’s there, been there all along, and he knew it.

And this doesn’t just apply to Asian-Americans. African-Americans, Latinos and Latinas, Muslims. People who contribute more to this country than it has a right to hope for. They all get to hear this crap on a routine basis.

Trump says we need to stop being politically correct. I’d like to see this country start.

3. So what would it take for the Trump-pets, the people with the yard signs and the red MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hats and even the Hillary-hating T-shirts to turn on this guy?

Insulting Muslims and Mexicans and African-Americans and Asian-Americans and the disabled and everyone else actually inspires these people. So it’s not that.

And while chortling about assaulting women might prompt tsk-tsks from some of them, the true believers seem fine with the language and, some of them, with the sentiment expressed.

So what would finally turn off the people who support this guy?

Believe it or not, there’s a blueprint for it.

It’s the 1957 film “A Face in the Crowd.”

Its central character is a man named Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes. He’s an alcoholic drifter from Arkansas who becomes, over the course of the movie, a national media sensation and – unfortunately for him – knows it.

His rampant popularity gives him the ability to advise establishment politicians about how to sell policies that are not necessarily in the people’s best interest.

Now, I’m going to give away the ending. If you’re curious about the film, stop reading here. For you, this blog post is over. You can come back after you’ve seen it – just know, for now, that there’s a Trump comparison coming.

Everybody else staying? OK.

The film’s dramatic conclusion comes when Lonesome finishes a broadcast and begins talking to the rest of the cast. He thinks the microphone is off, and begins ranting about stupid his audience is, calling them “guinea pigs” and “miserable slobs.” But his disillusioned producer/love interest has flipped the switch, and his bitter words are going out to the public.

The audience is furious. The network is swamped with calls demanding Lonesome be taken off the air. He ends the movie atop a penthouse wondering, drunkenly, how this all could have come apart.

So let’s get back to Trump.

He’s a born-and-bred New Yorker. And if there’s one thing I know about most of my fellow New Yorkers, it’s the contempt they have for the rest of the country. New York is the biggest and the best, and the rest of you don’t come close to measuring up.

At his core, that’s what Trump believes about this country. He believes the people in the rest of America are suckers who will fall for his lines of crap. He thinks they’re too dumb not to be impressed by his pseudo display of success and too full of their loathing of others not to suck up the hateful message he spreads.

The good news is – if recent polls are on target – there’s a real chance that a majority of Americans aren’t going to fall for it. Hillary Clinton’s lead has grown since the “Access Hollywood” soured our national discourse.

But for those who might still be with Trump, any evidence of the contempt in which he obviously holds them might – I’ll stress might – make them finally see this huckster for what he is.

I’d love to think that tape is out there somewhere. Somewhere, I’m sure of it, he trashtalks Alabamans and Ohioans and Kansans and Utahns.

Please. If you have a recording of Trump in that mode, share it.

It helps that Trump already has the penthouse.

1. It’s Monday, October 10, 2016. The election is 29 days away.

2. It’s the national celebration of Columbus Day. He and my paternal grandfather were Ligurians. So I celebrate.

3. Because we can’t stand this election much longer, there are a lot of people – myself included – who wanted Hillary Clinton to put Trump away in the second debate. Let him whine to the finish line after another drubbing.

That didn’t happen.

Yes, the CNN post-debate poll showed that she did better by a 57-34 margin.

And, yes, my God, the bastard threatened to throw her in prison – taking a page from the playbook of his buddy, Vladimir Putin.

And, in the initial half-hour he tried to self-destruct by invoking Bill Clinton’s infidelities and claiming as mere “locker-room talk” his captured-on-tape comments that amount to bragging of sexual assault.

But for most of the debate, he was scoring points by ranting about either terrible things she’s done over the years or failing to do things over the years.

And he scored best when she tried to use Lincoln to justify equivocation on Wall Street reform and he turned that around.

I thought there were points in the debate when he had the upper hand. To the point that I had to wonder something.

DId she not want to finish him off?

It’s a real question. If you were watching TV Saturday, you saw the meltdown of Republican officials about the Access Hollywood tape. Senators and Congressmen in tight races condemned him or even bailed on him, saying they wouldn’t vote for him and calling on him to withdraw.

And while I as a Democrat find that duly appropriate, I also have to think that I want Trump – and not some hastily appointed replacement – to lose this election. I want a total rejection of what this imbecile stands for.

That wouldn’t happen if he left St. Louis with his tail tucked between his legs.

So maybe Clinton finishes him off in Las Vegas on the 19th. Or maybe she lets him bleed all the way to the end. Maybe this is the rope-a-dope before the big knockout.

I just hope he doesn’t land a lucky punch between now and Nov. 8.

1. It’s Sunday, October 9, 2016. The election is 30 long days away. The second presidential debate is tonight.

2. As for 2:03 p.m. ET, there are – according to the Census Bureau – 324,669,783 Americans.

On Election Day, 324,669,782 of them will not be elected President of the United States. If there’s any justice and mercy, Trump will be among them.

But then there will be Hillary Clinton.

And that’s the point I want to make about tonight’s debate.

Much has been made about the Trump tape and the GOP meltdown and everything else this jackass says and does.

But when we go into the voting booth or mail in our ballots, we are not voting for who’s not going to be president. It’s not like a no-confidence vote in a parliamentary system, in which members decide the fate of their party’s leader.

We vote FOR president. We are affirmative. This is how we want to face our future.

There’s going to be a lot of crap that we’re going to hear about in St. Louis. We’re going to relive this whole embarrassing tape thing and everything else. Anderson Cooper is guaranteed to bring it up.

Clinton has to get away from this. She has to give people a reason to vote for her, because that’s the question before them. They need to feel as though they are reaffirming their belief in what this nation can do, and rejecting sexual predation and birther cowardice and racist dog whistling.

If Trump starts talking about her husband, she needs to deflect it. Her husband is one of the 324,669,782 – although he’s one of five of them who’s already had the job.

Yeah, she can’t just dismiss it, and I can’t imagine it’s anything she hasn’t heard or wants to hear again.

But she needs to turn this debate back toward issues. And she needs to show how much more of them in command of them he is.

She did that 12 days ago at Hofstra. That’s how the Trump freefall started. She needs to show the world which of the two is a leader, and let the other one show which of the two is an improperly raised 12-year-old in a 70-year-old body.

You can do this, Mrs. Clinton. You can lead. You can get the country to vote FOR you.

Because that’s what we do on Election Day.