A few notes on what my blog will be doing for the election.

Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore

With about a month left to go before the election I thought I would give an update post about how my blog is going to cover the election. Before I say anything else though, do not worry about other topics being ignored. If something major happens, like a terrorist attack, more civil unrest in the USA, or even an new ISIS offensive, I will do my best to cover it. Politics will take up the main focus for now, but it won't be the sole focus. I may even do another fantasy football post just to keep up the variety (my team lost today!). Not only do these stories deserve coverage, writing about politics all the time is exhausting. 

With all that being said, there is going to be a lot happening in the election, so much so that I will probably miss some of it. I have to admit, I dropped the ball this weekend. Not only did Hillary Clinton have yet another 47% moment, this time bashing Bernie Sanders supporters, but the New York Times had a hit piece targeting Trump and his taxes. I didn't cover either, just because I ran out of time and energy. Unfortunately, I am only one man, and I can't cover everything (once again, if anyone is interested in a guest post, let me know). 

Still, there are a few things that I will obviously covering. First of all, there are three debates left. One of these, the Vice Presidential debate, will happen on Tuesday. I will be live tweeting for much of it and I hope to write a reaction post the morning after the debate. Same goes for the two remaining presidential debates. I hope to cover all three and have posts up similar to the ones I have done in the past. If I don't, either there is something wrong with me, or I will have dropped the ball incredibly. 

I am also looking forward to any "October Surprises". These are the events that cause a candidate to lose quite a bit of support right before the election. I don't think we have seen any of those yet, with the Trump tax thing a rather amateurish attempt at one, but I think there is potential there, especially for the Hillary Clinton campaign. Julian Assange and Wikileaks are supposedly releasing a new batch of dumps related to the candidate and I have also been hearing rumors that a separate leak will show that Hillary Clinton was racist. I have no idea if either of those things will be legit, but if they are I will cover them. I'm not sure if there is going to be anything like that with Trump, but if something does come up, I will cover it as well.

I also plan to write a "why you should vote for Trump" post. Until now, I have been supporting Trump, but most of my reasons for supporting him have been personal. I haven't really expanded on why other people should vote for him as well. I think I may write up a longer post detailing why people should. It depends on how busy I get. With that being said, I will at least try to be objective when it comes to my stories. I am obviously not objective, I'll be the first to admit that, but I try to give credit where credit is due. If Clinton has a good weak or does well in a debate, I will post that as well.

One thing is for sure though, I won't be busy on election night with anything else but blog related stuff. I am going to put in for vacation on election day and the day after (assuming it gets approved) so I can live tweet the whole thing once election results start rolling in. I'll be covering the whole thing so you can either gloat with me when Trump wins, or rub it in my face when Clinton does. I also hope to have a final "how did we get here" post up that night, no matter who wins. Given how crazy this election has been, it would be almost criminal to not sum it up when it is all over. 

When the election is over, what happens to this blog? I will probably go back to focusing more on the "war" and "culture" parts of this blog. I will still be covering political stories, but those stories have been dominating the blog during the election. I'd like to get back to a more balanced mix. Expect the return of movie reviews and perhaps a few longer essays about whatever tickles my fancy.

Finally, I think it's always good to make predictions that people can later mock you for. I think there is a very good chance that Donald Trump wins the election. Though Trump may have taken a minor hit in the polling after the debate (may have, I don't trust the polling at this point), he's still comparatively scandal free. Clinton hasn't shown us in recent history that she can stay out of the news, and most of that news has been negative. Even if there isn't a major "October Surprise" I think that Clinton has enough scandals that she might be sunk. If Trump can do a little better job during the debates, she should be finished. I hope I don't have to eat my words...