Last-Minute Bulletins; Halloweens Past

I'm writing a day before the midterm elections, with wildly contrasting polls, guaranteed fraud in probably half the states and white Negro Bill Clinton's race-baiting in Florida and Maryland complicating predictions. One thing's for sure: John Zogby's off his nut. Love that he puts Jeb Bush ahead by 15 points, but if that prediction actually proves accurate Terry McAuliffe will be in the Bahamas by Wednesday morning.

That said, a MUGGER tip sheet that may or may not prove embarrassing: Coleman wins in MN. Romney in MA. Ehrlich in MD. Cleland in GA. Allard in CO. Talent in MO. Chaos in Louisiana. Pryor in AR. Bush in FL. Thune in SD. Sununu in NH. Democrats pick up five governorships. GOP adds two new members to their House majority. Republicans retake Senate by one seat, subject to Lincoln Chafee defecting in January. Or sooner.

All Those Years Ago

It was a subdued Halloween night at our household this year, as circumstances once again conspired to keep the kids on a short leash. The boys were disappointed when Mrs. M explained a few days in advance that too many real-life devils lurked outside?far more threatening that the razor-in-an-apple warning a generation ago?but they understood. After all, both Junior and MUGGER III often watch the news with me at night, and see the daily tally of terrorist murders around the globe, not to mention the ongoing reporting of last month's sniper killings.

They did don costumes?Jason Voorhees and the Grim Reaper?and made the rounds at our apartment building, as well as stopping by St. Mark's Comics on Chambers St. to goof around with their buddies there, but the whole "holiday" was over in less than two hours. There was enough candy collected to stimulate at least a cavity apiece, and one of our neighbors pulled the best trick of the evening. Opening the door, she admired the boys' masks and then offered them boxes of raisins. After waiting for their jaws to drop in shock, she laughed and produced a basket of Snickers and Nestle Crunch bars. Maybe you have to be middle-aged to appreciate the humor.

Later, while I was watching Tucker Carlson demolish Paul Begala on Crossfire (Carlson, after a shaky start with Bill Press, has rapidly developed into one of the most engaging and articulate tv pundits), the boys surprised me by asking what Halloween was like when I was a kid. Usually, when I reminisce about dime Cokes and nickel packs of baseball cards in the early 1960s, their eyes glaze over and Junior reminds me that it's the 21st century, dude!

Naturally, I was glad to oblige, and recalled the long nights each Oct. 31 back in sleepy Huntington, before doors were locked at night and when public school teachers actually knew who Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson were. Mine was a common ritual, at least in America's suburbs, and, probably, to a lesser extent, in cities as well. After I was eight, the costume never varied: every year I was a hobo, wearing too-large and threadbare clothes, one of Dad's old hats, and my mother would burn some cork for a scruffy beard and apply red lipstick to my nose for a W.C. Fields touch.

I'd travel with a pack of friends, starting at 6 p.m., and stay out till 11, with only a brief pit stop at home to unload a pillowcase filled with candy, interrupting the flow of wandering from street to street in a carefully choreographed schedule. Dicky Howard would slow things up with his damn UNICEF carton, but otherwise we'd move at a speedy clip, winding up back on LaRue Dr. after logging several miles in different neighborhoods, taking shortcuts through the woods to reach places like Halesite and Mill Dam Park. Back in those days the mini-bar wasn't as prevalent, so my bag was filled with full-size Almond Joys, wax lips and whistles, boxes of Jujyfruits and Dots, Hershey and 3 Musketeers bars, scattered fireballs and rolls of LifeSavers, and, inevitably, a bunch of fruit, which was immediately discarded at home.

Our gang had another rule: No snacking along the way, and violators were left lagging behind. I was exhausted when the operation was completed, but before hitting the sack a careful inventory was taken to measure that year's haul. I abandoned the ritual when I was 11, retiring at a peak: nothing was more pitiful than seeing kids still making the rounds as teenagers. Sort of like Mike Piazza trying to throw out a baserunner at second base.

Anyway, Junior and his younger brother were transfixed with this recitation, the same way I reacted to my mother and uncles telling me how they'd walk to Yankee Stadium from their Bronx Irish-ghetto home in the late 1920s and see Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Waite Hoyt. My sons clearly realized that Halloween, at least in New York City, is a relic of the past, a magical day that's been diminished in the modern era. They don't mind the trade-off. When I tell them that my boyhood home didn't have a color tv until I was 15, I didn't fly on an airplane until eighth grade, that videos and cable didn't even exist when I was their age, that I used a typewriter instead of an iMac, and Dr Pepper wasn't even sold in the Northeast, they look at me as if I'm an alien from Pluto.

Forbes for Treasury

When the election's over, one can assume that President Bush will simultaneously concentrate on two initiatives: telling UN Security Council nations to put up or shut up on Iraq and revamping his under-achieving Treasury Dept. SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt, a smart guy who suffers from both extreme hubris and a tin ear for politics, is history. I'd say likewise for the invisible (meaning exiled) Paul O'Neill, another accomplished man who has no idea how to deal with the media or when to shut up.

It would benefit the administration if Bush and Steve Forbes could patch up whatever feud they have, for the latter is an excellent candidate for a new Treasury secretary. In the Nov. 11 issue of Forbes, the two-time presidential candidate wrote: "President Bush is rightly focusing all his energies on Iraq. But isn't there another adult in this Administration who can give the economy the attention it needs?...

"The President should...unveil a tax cut package of Kennedy and Reagan proportions. Expand the already passed, across-the-board cuts in income tax rates and make them effective immediately; slash the capital gains levy; end the double taxation of dividends; increase the deduction for stock market losses that beleaguered individual investors can take on their income tax returns; raise caps on IRA, 401(k) and Keogh contributions, and permit owners of these plans to make withdrawals at any age they wish instead of forcing them to do so at age 70-1/2; liberalize depreciation schedules; and knock down corporate income taxes.

"In fact, the Administration should really go for the mojo and call for a flat tax."

Now that's an impressive job application.

Cliches Aren't Confined to Newsweek

Normally, I don't find Rick Reilly's Sports Illustrated column particularly irritating. In fact, on occasion he can rise above the web of cliches that are typical among marquee sportswriters, as in a poignant piece a few months ago on how John Elway's life fell apart (and was then pieced together) after he retired from pro football. But Reilly's Nov. 4 issue-closer was awful, reading like an audition for a standup routine in the Poconos.

He wrote: "Don't you feel a little sorry for Barry Bonds? [No.]

"True, Bonds has the warmth of a dyspeptic IRS auditor. He dispenses more snarls than twin Dobermans. He's rude, insular and grouchy. And that's on his birthday.

"But nobody, not even Barry Bonds, deserves a World Series like he just had. All his life he'd dreamed of getting to one of these babies, and when he did it brought him all the joy of an upper G.I. cleansing.

"Pitchers walked him like a Fifth Avenue poodle. Blood-red stadium crowds shook monkeys at him. Forty-four thousand people slapped 88,000 plastic sausages together until his ears popped."

And for this ESPN is trying to raid Reilly?

At least he didn't mix politics with sports. On the left-wing website AlterNet, a woman named Marsha Rosenbaum wrote an appalling column that could only be composed in San Francisco or Michael Moore's spacious limousine.

She said, on Oct. 29: "This morning I wondered why, after the devastating news about Paul Wellstone, which means not only the loss of a principled man and the only senator in a close race to have the guts to cast a 'no' vote on the war in Iraq, but whose death could tip the fragile balance of power in the Senate; and why, after reading a snotty and inaccurate cover story about a social issue I care deeply about, drug policy reform, in none other than Time magazine; I awakened with a lump in my throat... about the San Francisco Giants' loss in the World Series."

At least Reilly presumably knows that currently there is no "war in Iraq," and that Time isn't exactly the last word on social issues, or anything else for that matter.

She continues: "The Giants became our family. For three weeks in October, we experienced their anxiety, their joy, their camaraderie [say what?], their frustration, and now, their deep disappointment.

"But it felt like more than a game. I couldn't help but notice some serious praying in Anaheim Saturday night, with hands clasped and heads bowed, as though the religious right had taken up baseball. [Since when are religion and sports incompatible, dear?] The Series seemed a snapshot of political life in America: Orange County versus San Francisco. And just as we 'lost' the Presidency two years ago; lost a progressive politician this week; and seem to be losing our ability to shape the political course of our country; we lost the World Series."

While it's heartening that some America Last Americans do skip macramé classes and Noam Chomsky lectures to watch ballgames, how the Giants' choking in the Series has anything to do with Wellstone or "progressive" politics escapes me. When the Yanks were mercifully eliminated by the Angels in the first round of playoffs, I can't recall, even in the Times, anyone making a connection to tax cuts, the Iraqi dictator or Hillary Clinton's failure to help Carl McCall in his race against George Pataki.

But on the baseball front there's reason for cheer. The Yankees, apparently shocked by their early exit from 2002's postseason, are, according to local newspaper reports, considering trading catcher Jorge Posada, while taking a look at Colorado's grossly overcompensated Mike Hampton. Why the Yanks would give up Posada, whose clutch-hitting makes him a threat with any runners in scoring position, is a mystery. He's also part of the core of the Yanks' recent dynasty and, just as ditching Tino Martinez was bad for Bomber juju, unloading Posada would undermine morale with veterans like Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte.

With any luck, the Yanks in 2003 will stage a revival of the team that featured Roger Repoz, Horace Clarke and the unfortunate Roy White.

NOVEMBER 4

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