It got late early and the Cubs just gave us more of the same. In what was thought to be a change postseason for Major League Baseball, the North Side nihilists ended up giving hope the finger. The curse will not be reversed.
While an October surprise proved fatal to the Cubs, its electoral influence remains unknown. The GOP (Government of the Preposterous) is deploying a hit-and-run strategy and will swing at anything - Ayers, Islam, race - just to get back into the game. The signals Sarah Palin is winking through the screen also reveal an End of Days strategy and not so intelligently designed approach to bring evangelicals back to the plate.
As Cubs fans, we really have nothing to fear. We understand what it is like to live through an apocalypse and come out stronger. We just did it and will want to do it again. When hot stove discussions begin in a couple months, Barack Obama will be President Elect and the rest of us will be obsessing over next year's leadoff hitter. There is no other way.
A promise to never again believe has as much merit as lower taxes for everyone and universal health care by opening day. As Cubs fans, we are genetically wired to believe that next year will always be the year. Ironically, this is the only part of Darwin's theory that we share with much of the Republican base. You see it is possible to touch both ideological bases at once.
A pilot light of hope remains with the Bears, a former occupant of Wrigley Field who just took a statistically significant lead in the NFC North polls. Kyle Orton, a hybrid driving hippie and sometime organizer for the democratic party (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/bigten/2004-09-22-orton-agenda_x.htm), is emerging as the team's first legit quarterback since the Truman Administration. Their defense blows away anything put together by Don Rumsfeld.
With a wide open field of candidates, we now must debate the Bears chances of winning the big one. The inauguration is only two days after the NFC Championship, so it's best to plan these things early. If anything, the double fantasy of Barack Obama being leader of a free world in which the Bears are champions will give us something to do until pitchers and catchers report in February.
It starts and ends with Obama and the Bears.