The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

Anne was worried sick. She was sitting on her neighbour Helen’s brick patio, socially distanced, mask waiting in her purse in case it was needed. Some half-empty glasses of white wine sat on the round wrought iron table. Anne settled herself and took another sip of her wine.

“These debates scare me to death,” she said with a heavy sigh. “The rest of this Trump presidency scares me to death. I’m afraid Trump will somehow provoke Biden to lose his composure or make some horrible gaffe or stumble around trying to refute the President’s lies, vitriol and general snark.”

Helen unfolded the newspaper that lay on an empty chair. “The polls all give Biden an eight to ten-point lead. States like Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Arizona might be in play this year. Rust-belt states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan all look like they are going to vote Democratic. Trump is behind in Minnesota. Ohio and Florida are toss-ups.

“The revelations about Trump are coming out like regular pails of water that will drown his presidency,” Helen continued. “Look at what we are learning. First, we get Bob Woodward and his account that Trump knew in January how bad the coronavirus was and lied to the American people. 200,000 people are already dead, and millions more have been sickened.

“Now,” she said, “the New York Times prints the information we have all been waiting for since 2015.

“Trump paid no federal income tax at all for most of the past 20 years, and paid only $750 in 2016 and 2017. He may owe nearly half a billion dollars to unnamed creditors for which he is personally responsible. They might be foreigners, like Russian oligarch friends of Putin.

“What are you worried about? Trump looks like he’s dead on arrival come election day. Plus, I’ll bet that the Democrats and the Lincoln Project (Republican conservatives who are actively opposing Trump’s re-election) and outfits like the New York Times and the Washington Post have who knows what other bad things about Trump to reveal to us before November 3.”

Anne had only been listening with one ear. Her wine glass was now empty. “I hear what you’re saying. But none of that is the point here. Most Americans know Trump is a liar and a cheat. They know he only cares about himself. He doesn’t really try to hide any of that. He’s a jerk, a bully and a creep, but for his base of supporters, he’s their jerk.

“If he does well and more importantly, if Biden messes up in the debate, an awful lot of people will have gotten a reason to do what they kind of want to do anyway, which is to vote for Trump. I’m worried because Trump still gives a voice to ideas that appeal to lots of Americans.”

The friends sat in silence for a while. “I’m afraid to watch the debate,” Anne finally confided.

“This is what it must be like for men when their sports team is playing an important game and their nerves just go crazy with anxiety that their heroes will mess up something and the other team will find a way to win.

“I’d almost rather just have another glass of wine, fall into bed and hopefully read about Biden’s great performance the next morning.”

Helen reached over to sympathetically pat Anne’s hand. Then they both rose, pushed their chairs under the table and moved toward their houses.

Tomorrow would be debate night.

The debate was held in Cleveland 100 blocks east of a stadium where the mighty New York Yankees were at the same time inaugurating this year’s baseball playoffs by hammering the AL’s best pitcher and overwhelming the Indians.

The debate was a circus, as many had expected. But it brought few surprises. President Trump, acting “so very unpresidential” as Biden reminded the audience, blustered and blathered and exasperated everyone from embattled moderator Chris Wallace to the two neighbours.

Anne and Helen sat again at the same table on the same patio on a clear, cool Fall morning to compare notes. Cups of coffee had replaced the previous evening’s wine. But the mood was curiously the same.

“Did you watch?” asked Helen.

Anne shook her head. “I did. And I still feel anxious, full of a kind of vague dread,” she said. “Trump behaved like a petulant child, interrupting and constantly spouting lies and other nonsense. Biden seemed to keep his cool most of the time, and he really tried to speak to the American people and remind everyone that he would not forget them.

“It seemed to me that Trump behaved just as he did four years ago during those dreadful Republican debates. He basically refused to defend his record over the past four years, except to blame the economic recession on the ‘Chinese virus’. He remains committed to showing the country just who he is.”

Helen gazed at her friend. “So why the angst?”

“Because it worked last time for Trump,” Anne said. “And although I hate to admit it, Trump did look energized, strong and vital. Biden looked, well, grey. And the Republicans have me watching for signs that Biden is slowing down. I thought I did see a few of those signs. He faltered a few times. I thought maybe Trump is in his head.

“Also, Biden’s hair plugs are no match for Trump’s $70,000 coif.

“His head looked smaller to me on the TV.”

After the dust settles, the bet here is this week’s debate changed very few minds. Biden is basically running out the clock at this point, looking mostly to avoid a killing mistake late in this endless political game.

He succeeded in that, so it’s probably a win for him.

It’s the winning state and not just for the White House

Everyone in Washington knows Donald Trump cannot be re-elected unless he carries the state of Florida. Long-time political bellwether Ohio has definitively been replaced by the Sunshine State, which figures to be at the centre of the American political calculus for the next month.

But who figured that Florida would also be at the centre of the sports universe at the same time? Miami and Tampa both have big stakes in the pro baseball, hockey and basketball playoffs.

You could have made a lot of money betting before this short 60-game baseball season that the Miami Marlins would be in the playoffs, yet there they are after a second- place finish in their division. The Marlins, who won the World Series on the only two previous occasions when they have reached MLB’s postseason, face the 2016 champion and homestanding Chicago Cubs in their first-round match-up.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Rays dominated their division and rolled to the top seed in the American League.

Their first post-season action will come in Tampa against the Toronto Blue Jays. A preseason bet on the Rays wouldn’t have paid off as handsomely as one on the Marlins, but few expected them to finish ahead of the New York Yankees. But they did, and it wasn’t that close.

Hockey’s powerful Tampa Bay Lightning fought through tough past playoff memories, including a shocking first round sweep loss last year, to reach the NHL finals against the Dallas Stars. Undeterred by the absence on the ice of their captain and talisman Steven Stamkos, the Bolts won the Stanley Cup on Monday in the COVID-safe bubble of Edmonton, Alberta.

It was their first title since 2004 and the second championship in the team’s history.

And the Miami Heat are back in the NBA finals for the first time since 2014, facing the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James in the NBAs Orlando bubble. A bet on the Heat will likely pay off pretty handsomely in this match-up.

But the Heat are comfortable underdogs. With young stud Bam Adebayo and versatile, volatile Jimmy Butler, the Heat blazed through the favoured Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics to get to the Finals.

Butler was eliminated from the playoffs by LeBron James twice before, in 2013 (when James was with the Heat) and in 2016, after James had returned home to bring a title to Cleveland. Now he faces James, and the Los Angeles Lakers, again in the Finals.

“If you want to win, you’re going to have to go through LeBron James,” Butler told reporters. “You’re going to get that same test over and over, until you pass.”