Hillary Clinton's final words in Saturday night's Democratic debate were, "Good night and may the Force be with you." Big smile. Big applause.

According to my Jedi research and for those not quite so familiar, Clinton's closing line refers to a "Star Wars" phrase that wishes "luck or good will when individuals parted ways or the object of the expression was facing some sort of imminent challenge."

On the other side of the political spectrum, Donald Trump's closing words in the last Republican debate were, "Nothing works in our country." Doing my Trump research, that indicates everything in our country is a dangerous mess except "me, Donald J. Trump.”

Therein lies the choice. As we come down to the last days of the 2015 campaign season, two things are becoming clear. Clinton and Trump are positioned to be the candidates nominated for president of the United States. What a race it will be. We definitely will need the Force to be with all of us.

People have been talking about how much money Clinton has raised to finance her campaign almost from day one. She's going to need it.

The Republicans will throw every piece of dirt they can find on her and husband Bill Clinton in an effort to win while Trump, the man with the deepest pockets, stands ready to continue slinging more than arrows. But Trump has enough of his own mud to be dug up and thrown right back. Coupled with his constant fear mongering trying to masquerade as substance, we have quite a year ahead of us.

Despite the best attempts of Democratic National Committee to bury its last debate of the year on the Saturday night before Christmas, the candidates overcame their scheduling handicap with a strong performance that in the end strengthened Hillary's position. 

I found irony in ABC network's programming decision to use the game show "Jeopardy" as the lead in to the Democratic debate. When that show ended, the debate bizarrely popped up almost as if it was another game show. That category, unfortunately, could best describe too much of the Republican presidential campaign that was not playing that night.