My early morning dog-walk was accompanied by a line of Canada Geese obeying the irresistible command of nature to go south.

A little later, a single goose honked its solitary cadence as it hurried due north.  I had the brief fancy that she had forgotten something, like a pokey gosling or a pot on the stove; and she was rushing back to set things right; then would restart the journey alone.  

Whatever the reason, she’ll be southbound on the righteous path in no time; because that’s just the way it is;  a nice, reassuring reminder that there is some overarching predictability to the universe, come what may.

The debate last night was painful to watch.  Jim Lehrer deserves much of the blame for being unprepared, but who cares about that because the way analysts are parsing the outcome, it would seem the American voter cares more about style than substance.

“Mr. Obama looked like he didn’t want to be there.”

“Mr. Obama looked irritated.”

“Mr. Romney looked confident and glad to be there.”

Except for some pretty questionable “fact checking” sidebars, immediate “analysis” of the debate on all the channels that I checked focussed almost entirely on how comfortable the candidates looked!

Why wouldn’t a sitting president, with all the cares and secrets of his office, be simply overjoyed to be spending his twentieth wedding anniversary, live on-stage, trying to worm specifics out of his super-rich opponent?

Always an optimist, I was stunned to learn that debate analysts gave the win to Romney: Romney, who invented his way through the whole thing, defying math, contradicting his earlier position statements, and blithely avoiding questions of substance with the condescending assurance that he would “take care” of everyone.  

Then I remembered why…

The only purpose of the debates is to influence that tiny fragment of likely voters who remain undecided as of this date.

They are all that anyone cares about because the difference between Democratic and Republican platforms is as day compares to night.  Anyone with an ounce of gray matter has already chosen their candidate.    

Those still undecided voters are more likely to base their vote on “curb appeal” or what they had for breakfast than anything even remotely related to substance; kind of like you might choose a movie at the cineplex. No doubt, their eyes simply glaze over when the debating candidates come too close to specificity on points of policy.  

Two more debates (three more if you count the Biden/Ryan meet), and it will be all over except for the weeping.

If Obama pulls off the win, we’ll be euphoric for a few days and then settle into the glum job of prodding and coaxing him to deliver on some of the progressive agenda items that lagged during his first four years.   It’s unlikely that the complexion of Congress will be much improved, so gridlock is likely to continue.

If Romney wins (heaven forbid), that win will likely be tainted by some heavy charges of voter suppression and a new round of calls to revisit the validity of the electoral college model.  

Congress will still, most likely be in gridlock, as Democrats pivot to head-off what is likely to be a push by the extreme right to enforce what they will consider a mandate to dismantle the federal government.

The rich will get still richer; the poor will get still poorer.   And further economic melt-down will be accompanied by a newer, more militant generation of “Occupy” protests.

But those “low information” voters will not trouble themselves to understand why; and four years from now, as the bruised and battered former-American-middle-class limps to the polls once again to choose a president, the outcome will once more be left to the whim of a singularly unfocussed few who will continue to invest more attention in voting for “Dancing with the Stars” than they do on national elections.

Whimsy: the fatal flaw of this democracy.  That’s just the way it is.