A Glimpse of the Future (Gwen Moritz Editor’s Note)

I was in Chicago the night the Cubs defeated the Dodgers to capture the National League pennant for the first time since 1945 — and since I’m not a sports fan, it was wasted on me the way youth is wasted on the young.

My older son lives in Chicago, so I flew up that weekend to spend some time with him before attending a conference on Monday and Tuesday. I had been to Chicago a handful of times before he moved there in 2013, and it’s starting to grow on me now that I have an excuse to be there a couple of times a year. I even started paying attention to some of the political ads that were playing on local TV stations.

Now, I didn’t really notice much advertising by either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump for the same reason we haven’t really been bludgeoned to death by them here in Arkansas: The statewide winner is a foregone conclusion. Illinois hasn’t favored a Republican in the presidential race since George H.W. Bush in 1988, and the current Democratic nominee actually grew up in a Chicago suburb. At this writing, the statistical wizards at FiveThirtyEight.com give Clinton a 16-point advantage over Trump in Illinois and Trump an 18-point advantage over Clinton in Arkansas.

I did notice heavy rotation of a couple of different commercials slamming the “Trump-Rauner Republicans.” Rauner is Bruce Rauner, the Republican currently occupying the governor’s office, where Illinois has been much more of an equal-opportunity state. But here’s the funny thing about those Trump-Rauner ads: Rauner isn’t even on the ballot this year.

He’s got two more years in his current term, but the ads from a Democrat-affiliated federal super PAC certainly don’t make that clear. They just tie Rauner — who soundly defeated incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn 50.3 percent to 46.3 percent in November 2014 — to Trump and some of his most offensive and outrageous comments. And they throw in all other Illinois Republicans for good measure.

Rauner had done something that would be unassailable in most elections: He said he would back his party’s nominee back before the identity of that nominee was known. When it turned out to be Trump, Rauner skipped the Republican National Convention and never actually endorsed Trump personally. He’s even denounced some of Trump’s most objectionable comments (particularly his boasting about being a sexual predator), but he hasn’t made a full break by saying he would not vote for his party’s candidate.

I suspect I witnessed the leading edge of future Democratic campaign strategy: Tie Trump around the neck of every Republican, just as the GOP has saddled every Democrat with some connection to Barack Obama. Even if Trump pulls off an unlikely victory next week — FiveThirtyEight has his chances at less than 20 percent, and that’s far more bullish than other predictors — Republicans in blue and purple states may have to spend time distinguishing themselves from the leader of their party.

Maybe not in Arkansas. Here the Trump brand is still golden. Trump’s support in Arkansas is even stronger (56 percent) than U.S. Sen. John Boozman’s (52 percent), according to the poll results released last week by Talk Business & Politics.

But nationally, it’s a different story. Even Trump’s company is dropping the name from its new, lower-priced hotels in favor of Scion, a brand available since Toyota announced in August that it would discontinue that line of cars.

My husband is a longsuffering Pittsburgh Pirates fan, but his parents are originally from the Cleveland area, so the Indians are his World Series team. (Apparently, that’s the way sports fans pick who to root for if their favorite team isn’t playing.)

Still, I thought a journalism instructor with a 40-year collection of Sports Illustrated might like a souvenir newspaper celebrating the pennant Chicago has been waiting for. Several friends who knew I was in Chicago asked me to pick up newspapers for them as well.

I couldn’t find one.

There were no racks near my son’s apartment. When I moved to my downtown hotel about noon on Sunday, all that was left in the coffee shop was The New York Times. The weather was glorious, so I walked for blocks in every direction, and the only newspaper rack I found was empty.

My husband and friends were disappointed, but I like to look on the bright side. The very same stories were readily available online, but when important things happen, everyone seems to want ink on paper.

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at GMoritz@ABPG.com.