Since it's such an auspicious day, perhaps it's time to have a discussion about the increasingly-real possibility that Donald Trump or Ben Carson could actually become the Republican nominee for president next year. It's a scary, scary thing for most to contemplate, but the punditocracy's inside-the-Beltway strategy of just clapping our hands real hard and hoping that Tinkerbell quietly lies down somewhere to die just doesn't seem to be working. Pretty much every pundit under the sun -- from the hard left to the hard right -- has so far written a column this year predicting Trump's imminent political demise. To date, none of them have proven even slightly true. Trump is now challenged for the lead, but he's still polling at roughly the same level of support that he has pretty much ever since he got in the race. Ben Carson has risen to Trump's level in the polling much more than Trump has fallen back. The "Trump (and now, Carson) is going to fade -- it's inevitable" line of thinking is getting more and more divorced from the polling realities. So perhaps it's time to start thinking the unthinkable: either of these two men could actually become the Grand Old Party's nominee for the highest office in the land.

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Last night I wrote down my snap reactions to the fourth Republican debate. Today, rather than looking backwards again, I'm going to instead look forward (both literally and figuratively) to the upcoming Democratic debate which will be held this Saturday night.

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Both debates tonight were wrapped in cotton balls, with questions only from deep within the conservative media bubble. Only one question, during the "kid's table" debate, even came close to straying off the reservation, and it was promptly ignored by everyone on the stage. Perhaps because of this, there were no direct attacks on the moderators and very little interchange between any of the candidates (at least in the main event).

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winnow vb -- 1 : to remove (as chaff from grain) by a current of air; also : to free (as grain) from waste in this manner  2 : to get rid of (something unwanted).

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I haven't done one of these types of column in a while, but figured it was a good time to do so, since I punted on writing yesterday to get interviewed on HuffPost Live and since tomorrow is our annual Hallowe'en column, with a scary nightmare story for both left and right. Because of all this, there's been a lot of political news made this week and I have nowhere else to talk about it all than here.

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No matter what the eventual outcome, this year's Republican primary race is sure to go down in history as one of the most bizarre political contests ever. Well, considering what happened in 2012, perhaps I should amend that with "...until the next one happens." We currently have two frontrunners, with everyone else running so far back in the pack they're ecstatic if they ever post a double-digit number in the polls (which few of them can manage to do, even in state-level polling). The two GOP frontrunners have, between them, a total of zero days of political experience. One is a megalomaniac billionaire and one is a world-class surgeon who seems to be trying to prove the old canard that doctors all think they've been promoted to God.

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Hillary Clinton just had the best week of her campaign yet. Not only did she shine at the Benghazi hearing yesterday, three of her Democratic opponents dropped out of the presidential nomination race. Joe Biden was never actually in the race, but his announcement that he wouldn't run was more significant than Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee ending their campaigns. This leaves Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, and Lawrence Lessig. Of those four, only Sanders and Clinton have any chance at winning the nomination, and Hillary's doing better in the polls than Sanders. So, all in all, a very good week for Hillary Clinton.

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Paul Ryan is now being hailed as the savior of the House Republicans. Whether he lives up to that lofty title should quickly become apparent. Changing leaders doesn't change the dynamics of the problem, so for all the praise Ryan is now getting he's still got an almost-impossible task in front of him. No wonder he didn't want the job in the first place. As the new House Republican savior, his main objective is going to be to save House Republicans from themselves.

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After two seemingly-endless Republican debates, this week the Democratic candidates for president finally got their turn to face off against each other on national television. While the audience was smaller (since Donald Trump was not on stage), it was still a lot bigger than most political debates in the past -- over 15 million people watched on CNN, and a further million livestreamed it. This is up from the usual audience of 2-to-5 million, it should be noted, from years past.

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Although my own personal bias (as anyone can see, from a random sampling of my past columns) is pretty liberal, every so often I feel the responsibility to offer up honest suggestions for Republican politicians to help either themselves or their party. The only times I actually write such columns are when I'm almost certain my advice will be ignored, so I guess that right there also counts as bias. I offer this up as a preamble to today's column, which consists of some advice for John Boehner. In a nutshell, Boehner should use the freedom his caucus has just handed him (by not being able to agree on his successor) to end his legacy by being the savior of any chance Republicans might have in next year's election.

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