let's get this election over with!

The third campaign debate over, thank the lord. This time I watched it on CNN with the squiggly lines - incomprehensible. Are they attached to the voters' foreheads, is that how they work? Anyway, I have to say that Romney just does not quit; he's slow, steady, relentless. I hate that sweet sad smile and the fact that suddenly he is the kindest candidate the U.S. has ever known. How do you wrestle a chameleon with a sweet sad smile? Very difficult. And it's clear that the Republicans have set the bar politically - Obama, sadly, sounds as much a hawk as any Republican.

But he did extremely well, steady and relentless too, in his way. How I wish he could laugh a bit more - though the line about bayonets and horses was great. But to me, no question that Obama was way, way stronger and clearer - more so, in some ways, than in the last one, because he was forceful but calm.

And then David Shields, a right-wing columnist commenting on PBS, said he thought Romney portrayed himself as a solid commander in chief and came out ahead. I am as usual in an alternate reality. Or else David Shields is high on Bullshit Mountain, as Jon Stewart says.

I'd just come in from Ryerson, where we had one of the most spectacular classes of my entire 17-year teaching career. Tonight's was a difficult assignment, and every student tonight dug deep, with honesty and clarity. But tonight was a first - after a young man read a beautiful story about his mother's death, everyone in the room was in tears, including me. He told me afterwards that he was glad he'd taken the course because the supportive environment freed him to tell the most painful story of his young life. And I thought, if I've done nothing else as a teacher, I've helped this happen.

Go Obama.