The cartoon of the day:

David Frum cuts through...

...some of the clutter in Mitt Romney's tax "plan." From his blog today (my emphasis):

It is very unlikely to be true that middle-income people will get a tax break in a Romney administration. 80% of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. The payroll tax holiday is scheduled to expire at the end of this year, adding 2 points of tax to the liabilities of every worker who earns less than $110,000. That's unlikely to be offset by any plausible income tax cut.

Morris will travel up the road...

...to Kaneland this Friday, and so will I. (Turns out quarterback Drew David will be starting for the home team Knights after all. Cool!)

This will only be the third meeting between the two programs in recent history, with Kaneland winning both contests (home team in CAPS):

2011: Kaneland (12-1) 31, MORRIS (9-2) 28
2010: KANELAND (12-1) 47, Morris (6-4) 7

(Trivia question: Who handed Kaneland their only loss in each of the last two seasons and eliminated them from the playoffs? Answer: Montini.)

So what will happen Friday night? It's tempting to predict another Kaneland victory, but the Redskins of Morris bring a perfect 8-0 record with a victory over 7-1 Richards in Week Two.

Morris is led by quarterback Zach Cinnamon, above, who transferred from Streator only last January. Cinnamon seems to prefer to run rather than pass, but when he isn't carrying the ball himself he hands it off to either Reese Sobol or Jeff Perry. And, just to keep defenses honest, Cinnamon's been known to throw to receivers Anthonee Monson or Danny Friend.

Morris (ranked No. 2 in 5A by Associated Press and No. 28 over all by MaxPreps) will need all of these weapons against Kaneland (No. 2 in 6A and No. 10 over all).

Here's a look at the Redskins' schedule so far:

Morris 14, MINOOKA (3-5) 6
MORRIS 15, Richards (7-1) 13
MORRIS 43, Geneseo (4-4) 0
Morris 56, DIXON (0-8) 6
MORRIS 41, Yorkville (3-5) 17
Morris 13, SYCAMORE (5-3) 0
MORRIS 56, DeKalb (2-6) 27
Morris 28, ROCHELLE (5-3) 21

As for Kaneland, also 8-0, their best opponent so far has been 6-2 Sterling. (Neither of these teams has played a sterling schedule. Sorry.)

But the Knights have an explosive offense, averaging over 43 points a game. The key is junior quarterback Drew David, who has passed for over 1100 yards this season. David also runs with the ball, as does junior running backs Jesse Balluff, above, and Nate Dyer. David's prime receivers besides Balluf are Zack Martinelli and another junior, Dylan Nauert. (Are these guys stacked for next year, or what?)

Here's the Knights' 2012 schedule:

Kaneland 25, BROOKS COLLEGE PREP (5-2) 24
Kaneland 52, HUNTLEY (5-3) 35
KANELAND 42, Sterling (6-2) 0
Kaneland 41, STREATOR (0-8) 0
Kaneland 34, ROCHELLE (5-3) 6
KANELAND 66, DeKalb (2-6) 23
Kaneland 55, YORKVILLE (3-5) 0
KANELAND 30, Sycamore (5-3) 7

Again, it's hard not to expect another Kaneland victory Friday night, but I wouldn't be driving all that way if it was a lock. Don't rule out a Morris upset.

BOWG prediction: Kaneland 28, Morris 24.

After reading three pieces today...

...that deal with the future of the country and the Republican Party (by Frank Rich, Jonathan Chait and Mark Leibovich), I feel compelled to share my own prediction of the future. Ready?

The economy is improving and will continue to improve, no matter which candidate -- President Obama or Governor Romney -- is elected next month. Whoever is in office for the next four years (or eight, if Romney wins) will get credit for the recovery. (I still think it will be the president, based on Intrade and FiveThirtyEight. They're the best; everything else is just noise.)

Assuming President Obama is reelected in November and the economy recovers in the next few years, his popularity should go up, right? (See: Reagan, Ronald.) And the Republicans -- the tea party in particular -- who oppose him will lose favor with the general public. As a result, moderate Democrats should stand a good chance at unseating some of those GOP House members in the 2014 midterms. So right there, the Congress should get more moderate, more sane. And in 2016, in an effort to win back some of those seats, the Republicans should run more moderate, establishment-type candidates.

So, if the president is reelected and if the economy recovers, then the fever in Washington should break in the next few years. The president should be able to strike deals with the GOP leadership much in the same way that Ronald Reagan was able to do with Tip O'Neill & Company in the 1980s.

Now, even if Romney is elected I suspect the economy will recover and the extremism of the tea party will simply fade away as the economic emergency passes. (Prosperous times are usually accompanied by ennui.)

Either way, the tea party is destined to be a relic. In five or ten years your kids will ask you, "What was that whole tea party business about anyway?"

There's a piece on Paul Ryan...

...in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Here's the money paragraph (my emphasis):

Jared Bernstein, who read Ryan’s fiscal proposals when he worked as chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Biden, was more pointed regarding Ryan’s credibility. “He definitely talks the talk,” Bernstein told me. “He has a great facility with a particular set of words, like ‘baseline,’ ‘nondefense discretionary’ and things like that.” Bernstein said he eventually came to the view that while Ryan might understand basic concepts, “he does not actually understand what it takes to craft a budget.” This became clear when Ryan was chairman of the House Budget Committee after 2010. “I would say at this point that his budgetary knowledge is a stalking horse for his ideology,” Bernstein told me, meaning that what was important wasn’t the actual balancing of the budget but the slashing of government spending and programs like Medicare and Social Security and the revenue-generating taxes that pay for them. By picking Ryan, Romney signaled that he too was all-in on Big Idea conservatism. And here was the guy, popular with the base and well liked in Congress, who was going to help him sell it to America.

Basil L. Plumley, a veteran...

...of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, died at age 92.

Anyone with four "L"s in his name automatically qualifies for Most Unfortunate Name of the Day. (I prefer his nickname, "Iron Jaw.")

This just in: Drew David, the...

...star quarterback for Kaneland, may not play this Friday night against Morris due to an "upper body injury," according to his father. The 6'0", 175-pound junior has already passed for 1,483 yards and 19 touchdowns this year. Wow!

This could change everything for me. I'll be monitoring the situation carefully, but if David doesn't figure to play I'll check out Schaumburg (7-1) at Palatine (7-1) instead. (They're both larger schools, and it's much closer anyway.)

Stay tuned for developments.