I have reviewed the engagement and I am prepared to deliver my assessment. I deliver it at the hour I deliver every assessment, which is the hour I deliver it.

Ground was yielded twice. Both times by the same man. Once on the police, once on the retirees. In each case he had held the position beforehand, and in each case, under direct fire, he stated on a live stage that he no longer holds it.

The other man yielded nothing. Not on the building bought for eighteen and a half million from a donor and assessed at seven. Not on the schools, where the city offered two and a half million, went to court, lost, and settled at fifteen. Not on the retirement system, which is funded at thirty-one percent and has been underfunded throughout his term. He was not asked to yield on these and he did not volunteer.

That is the report. One force gave ground. One did not.

I am aware that certain readers will now raise the question of whether the ground was worth holding. I have no column space for that. A position abandoned under contact was not a position. It was an opinion, and an opinion is what a man has before anyone has shot at him.

Two further notes from the field.

Asked what the city spends too much on, the incumbent named the pensions. The challenger named several smaller things. The incumbent named the correct thing. I record this without comment, because a correct answer given by the man responsible for the problem is not something I know how to score.

And at the close each was invited to praise the other. The incumbent praised his opponent for a policy position. The challenger praised the incumbent for owning a dog.

I have crowed since before dawn and I will crow tomorrow at the same hour whatever has happened in the night. That is the post. But I will say that in all my years of covering engagements I have never seen a man surrender the field and then compliment the other fellow's animal.

The sun is up. It was going to be.

— G. L.