WE CAN'T WAIT – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  For it to be over, that is.   What an awful election campaign this is.   Michael Barone calls it "the ugliest election," at the Washington Examiner: 

In last week's third and (thankfully) final presidential debate, each candidate did an excellent job of presenting convincing arguments why people shouldn't vote for the other.

Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton a felon and Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump a traitor. Unfortunately for America, there is plenty of basis for the former charge and less but still disturbing evidence for the latter.

These two may not be the most unpopular pair of major party presidential nominees in history. James Buchanan and John C. Fremont in 1856 may have been worse, at least to judge from their later feckless careers.

But of all the nominee pairs since random sampling polling was invented in 1935, Trump and Clinton certainly win the prize. Majorities of voters look negatively on both and consider each dishonest and untrustworthy. It's not hard to see why.

And...a new political era is about to begin:

A Bloomberg poll asked Republicans and Democrats which of several figures should be the face of their party nationally if their nominee loses. A plurality of Democrats, 32 percent, said Hillary Clinton and 6 percent Tim Kaine. But 31 percent said Bernie Sanders and 23 percent Elizabeth Warren.

Among Republicans, 24 percent said Donald Trump, far below the percentage supporting him against Clinton. But a total of 71 percent picked the more conventional conservative alternatives Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan and John Kasich.

That's a crude measure, but it provides an interesting hint of the politics that's just a couple of weeks ahead.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  No one knows more about the statistics of American politics than Michael Barone. 

October 24, 2016