Everyone is sick right now.  There's only one thing it seems we can all agree on, which is that we can abide the massacre of children neither in conscience nor gut.  It's an unfortunate truth that what transpired on Friday in Newtown was different in degree rather than in kind, but the degree seems to matter this time.

Even more unfortunate is that this heightened arousal doesn't really seem to be leading to many cogent answers to the question, "How do we prevent this from happening again?"

Many voices, from the hallowed blogs of Dag to the exalted table around which Mighty Joe Scarborough and his colleagues convene, have decried the lack of substance in this election (though I'm pretty sure I hear that complaint every time anyone is running for office - "This should be about the issues!").  Mika Brzezinski has called it the Seinfeld election - a race about nothing - though I'll leave up to the reader whether this reflects more accurately the election or her observational skills.

Against my better judgment and my general belief that the cake of this unrelenting election cycle has long been baked, I'm going to give Willard Mitt "I'd Shut Down FEMA" Romney a bit of advice, 100% gratis.  Mitt Romney should spend the next week using his leadership, connections, management skills and even his own personal fortune to demonstrate exactly why he should be President by organizing a private relief effort for victims of Hurricane Sandy.

About a year ago, I wrote about a model of US Presidential elections by UCLA's Lynn Vavreck.  Vavreck's model, like almost every poli-sci model of this type with any predictive power, is mostly based on what's happening in the economy.  But Vavreck claims her model is still more accurate by taking a careful accounting of the campaign messages.

Here's how I described Vavreck's model last year: