This is my last chance to tell you what I think about the coming election, because The Courant enforces a period of editorial neutrality right before the vote.
So here are a few things I think.
I think it's damn strange the way Linda McMahon ran a commercial featuring people, most of them African American, talking about how they plan to vote for both President Barack Obama and McMahon.
I believe those people, even though what they're suggesting doesn't make sense at a number of levels. They've watched 4,000 Linda McMahon commercials by now. They can't help themselves. In a way, it's a commercial about what happens when you watch a lot of other commercials. "I'm voting for President Obama and for someone who wants to make his life miserable."
I think McMahon should air more commercials featuring people whose support for her is irreconcilable with their other beliefs.
"I'm voting for Linda McMahon, even though wrestlers killed my grandmother."
"I'm voting for Linda McMahon, even though I believe space and time do not exist."
"I'm voting for Linda McMahon even though I believe she is the personification of Evil."
I think McMahon was forced into this position by President Obama, who is going to win Connecticut by more than 10 points. If she can't disconnect Obama from her opponent Chris Murphy, all the money she has spent — which is roughly equivalent to the combined amount of all the money spent by all the other people who have ever run for Senate in Connecticut dating back to Uriah Tracy in 1797 — will be for naught.
(I think if McMahon loses this time and attempts to run again, her children and heirs, Shane and Stephanie, will attempt to have a court declare her mentally incompetent.)
The commercial urges people who vote for Obama to vote for Linda McMahon on the Independent line. This is because many of those people never vote Republican.
I think the Linda McMahon on the Republican line and the Linda McMahon on the Independent line are the same person.
I think that — despite what polls tell you — the voters in this race could be best pictured as two pitchers containing roughly the same amount of water. I think the race is now about who can tip his or her pitcher and pour more of the water on the ground.
I think the eyes of Barack Obama may once again behold the gleaming parapets of Bridgeport in between now and Election Day, although this would have been easier to accomplish back in the day of Uriah Tracy when northeast Ohio was literally part of Connecticut.
I think if all the women voters in Connecticut watched a five-minute clip of "Wrestling With Manhood," a documentary featuring scenes in which WWE women are stripped, spanked, hair-pulled, punched, clotheslined and hit with chairs by WWE men, I would have to find some other actually competitive race to write about today.
I think, switching races for a second, it was wrong of Elizabeth Esty last week to compare her 5th Congressional District opponent Andrew Roraback to a child who favors dessert over vegetables.
I think it is possible to look at Roraback and see the eyes of a person who has never had dessert and who was told as a child that it would be wrong to eat butterscotch pudding until the people of Czechoslovakia are free.
I think Esty would be wise to stay away from any verbal profession which makes her seem (even) more like a censorious, hectoring Brussels sprout fanatic.
I think, given the completely non-competitive nature of the other four congressional races, it's kind of amazing that Connecticut Republicans continue to oppose campaign finance reform.
I think Brussels sprouts are delicious, but there's no getting around their high unfavorables.
I think I don't know what is going to happen on Election Day.
I might have figured it out by next Sunday, when I can't say as much about what I think.
I think we need what is sometimes called, in other contexts, "a safety word."
Opa-Locka Thematic Resource Area.
If, in next week's column, I mention Opa-Locka Thematic Resource Area, load your car with jugs of potable water and drive toward the nearest border.
Colin McEnroe appears from 1 to 2 p.m. weekdays on WNPR-FM (90.5) and blogs at http://courantblogs.com/colin-mcenroe/. He can be reached at Colin@wnpr.org.
