America is in the midst of a dramatic shift in public opinion, one which began at least a decade ago and shows no signs of reversing any time soon. The concept of fully legalizing marijuana for adult recreational use must now actually be considered the mainstream opinion in America. The latest nationwide poll (that I have seen) put national support for legalization at a whopping 60 percent -- higher than it has ever previously been. Next Tuesday, five more states will vote on the issue on their ballots. Two of those states are on the East Coast. One of the five is the most populous state in the country, with over 39 million people living in it -- fully one-eighth of the total US population. Polling is sketchy on the issue (it always is), but it certainly looks possible that recreational marijuana legalization has a good shot of winning, in all five states.

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Assuming the polls are not "rigged," and barring any last-minute revelations in the campaign season, Hillary Clinton is going to be our next president. The chances of this becoming true have been increasing ever since the first general election debate, and they now seem to have crossed the borderline into near-certainty. If Democrats also pick up at least four Senate seats as well, we should all be prepared for a steaming pile of hypocrisy from Republican senators immediately thereafter, as they fall all over themselves in a rush to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court before Barack Obama leaves office.

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So we had the final presidential debate this week, and Donald Trump went right on being Donald Trump, which should have surprised precisely no one by now. Our subtitle today, of course, refers to the two most amusing (or horrifying, take your pick...) things Trump said during the debate. Since then, both "bad hombres" and "nasty women" are trending online. Hey, when bad hombres and nasty women unite, anything could happen, right?

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Tonight was (finally!) the last presidential debate of the 2016 election season. I thought it was a better debate (if less entertaining) than the first two, personally. A lot of actual policy positions were discussed, the candidates interacted with each other without so much of the "everyone's screaming at once" interludes, and the moderator kept the subjects moving along at a good clip. So my overall impression of the final debate was that it was a lot more like a normal presidential debate than the previous two.

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Senator John McCain just got caught in a "Kinsley gaffe," which is defined as: "a Washington politician accidentally admitting an obvious truth." For which I'd like to thank McCain, because it could actually pave the way for Senate Democrats to combat Republican obstructionism in a very effective manner. McCain's gaffe was on the subject of the Senate's confirmation process for Supreme Court justices. He confirmed what some had already been suspecting -- if Hillary Clinton becomes president, the Senate Republicans might just band together to refuse to confirm anyone she names to the high court. Period.

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Hoo boy. Every Friday morning, we sit down and review all the news stories from the past week, in preparation for writing this column. After spending a few hours reading and taking notes and copying URLs, the writing begins. But we've learned, over the years, to do a last-minute check on the headlines right before we stop reading the news and start typing. Because every so often, a big bombshell lands that simply cannot be ignored. This is, to put it mildly, one of those times we're glad we checked, because a bombshell just exploded all over the presidential race.

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There is a major political debate currently happening in many parts of this country, but the astonishing thing is that most politicians -- especially those on the national stage -- seem to want to pretend the debate doesn't even exist. We saw this previously on the issue of gay marriage, when even the Democratic candidates for president in 2008 wouldn't support the idea for fear of losing votes -- even though it was obviously the right thing to do. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would only support half-measures whose time had already passed, saying they were in favor of "civil unions," but that "marriage" was too sacred a word to use for these unions. That was only eight years ago, and the political shift since then has been monumental. These days, it would be hard for any Democrat to get elected who didn't wholeheartedly support marriage equality for all. The people led, and the leaders eventually followed.

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Tonight, the candidates for vice president will debate. Now, the vice-presidential debate is truly the Rodney Dangerfield of political events. Don't believe me? Here an the actual headline I read in my morning newspaper today: "Oh, There's A Vice Presidential Debate, Too." It don't get no respect, I tells ya... no respect.

I find that even I am not sufficiently excited about this event (which is another way of saying to my readers: "I won't be after-blogging tonight"). The two campaigns have made it pretty impossible to get excited about the vice-presidential debate, by dint of their choices for vice-presidential candidates. Mike Pence? Tim Kaine? Really? That's who you picked? Excuse me while I yawn enormously....

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Our subtitle today is not original, so we've got to start by giving credit where credit is due. David French, a writer for the ultraconservative National Review (and a man once so horrified by Donald Trump's candidacy that he considered running himself), had the funniest metaphor for Trump's performance in Monday's first presidential debate:

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As startling as it is to those of us who obsess over politics, last night's presidential debate was actually the first time millions of Americans paid any attention whatsoever to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. For millions, the first debate is the first time they tune in at all, both literally and figuratively. Even more astonishing, most of them haven't made up their minds on which candidate to support, even this late in the race.

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