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I can’t believe that I am missing the most competitive World Series in many years to watch the Republican Debate. There has to be something wrong with this picture. I am an admitted baseball fanatic and a political junkie, so something had to give.
My grandfather Charles, sat me in a kids rocking chair, next to his rocker, in 1955 to watch Don Larsen pitch the first and only perfect game in World Series history. I’ve been hooked on baseball’s fall classic every since then. I cut my political teeth in the early 1950’s listening to my extended family debate whether President Harry Truman should have allowed General Douglas MacArthur to pursue the Chinese into the mainland several years after Truman and MacArthur were off the political landscape. That’s how serious politics was around the Harvey farm.
When we meet in glory, how can I ever explain to my granddad that I passed up a chance to see flame throwers Johnny Cueto and Jacob deGrom square off in game two of the 2015 World Series, especially after game one ended tied after nine innings and was finally won in 14 innings by Kansas City on a sac fly.
I can imagine him saying “you passed up those two torch bearers for the barb tossers Donald Trump and Jeb Bush, and the mild passivity of Ben Carson.”
Hard to believe, but yes I did.
Tonight’s debate winner is the American electorate because for the first time in the 2016 presidential campaign season, the electorate got a chance to see how the Republican candidates handle policy questions from a broader perspective than the narrow conservative view they have been able to get away with thus far in previous debates.
The CNBC Moderators asked questions with a stem that pulled the candidates out of their comfort zone. If I had to assign a winner to tonight’s debate other than the America people, it would be Lindsey Graham, who did extremely well expressing his views on foreign policy in the debate prior to the the main GOP candidate debate. He earned the right to move up with the big boys and gal in the next debate.
Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com.