"I'm the worst part of your day," George Will told more than 500 attendees yesterday at the seventh annual Inside Alternatives conference in Denver. "I'm going to explain your presidential election choices."

When Barack Obama leaves offices at noon on January 20, he will be only the second two-term president to serve after two other consecutive two-term presidents since James Monroe in 1824. People are, and should be, very hungry for change. Since the economic recovery began in late 2009, the U.S. economy hasn't experienced a single year of 3.0% GDP growth.

That, according to Will, is Hillary Clinton's basic problem. The American public wants to change parties. Indeed, of the six last two-term presidents, only one, Ronald Reagan, was succeeded by a member of his own party, George H.W. Bush.

Donald Trump's biggest problem is the blue wall of 18 states in the electoral college that have voted Democrat since 1992. After that, Clinton needs less than 30 more electoral votes to win.

Many Americans, myself included, think their biggest problem is that they are both deplorable individuals, but Will was trying to stick to facts, not emotions—with difficulty. "We've never elected a candidate [the American public] considered dishonest and untrustworthy," he said. "This year we've elected two."

How did we get to this point? One reason the Democrats got stuck with Clinton is that, despite Obama's easy victories in 2008 and 2012, his party got "clobbered" in both the 2010 and 2014 mid-term elections. That decimated their ranks of up-and-coming senators and governors, as well as future ones down the political totempole.

Another reason is that while the electoral college tilts in the favor of Democrats, the congressional map favors Republicans, who are distributed more efficiently on ageographic basis. Obama won 27 congressional districts by 80 percent or more, Will noted. In 2012, Democrats got two million more House votes and lost by 35 seats.

A third development is the end of ticket splitting. In 1984, 45 percent of voters nationwide split their tickets, voting for candidates in both parites. In 2012, that number was 5.7 percent. The battle lines have been drawn.

Outside of Washington, D.C., Republicans are doing very well, controlling most governors' offices and state legislatures. There are 913 fewer Democratic state legislators today than when Obama was elected.

The big irony, Will said, is that Obama isn't unpopular. He has a 51-52% approval rating, which in normal times should be sufficient to carry Hillary Clinton to victory. But as Democrats learned the hard way in the mid-terms, Obama doesn't have coattails when he isn't on the ballot.

The Democratic Party may be the world's oldest, but only three of their presidents—Andrew Jackson, FDR and LBJ—have ever won with more than 53 percent of the vote. In contrast, Reagan, Nixon, Eisenhower and many Republican presidents before the Great Depression topped that level.

In a normal year, we "are a 47 to 47 percent country," with 6 percent of the vote undecided, Will said. Clearly, this is no normal year.

Despite their success in the states, the Republican Party faces some serious problems at the national level. They've lost the popular vote in five of the last six elections. Their strategy has been to carry Texas, all of the Deep South, the Central Plains and Rocky Mountain states, parts of the Midwest, and then spend almost "the GDP of Brazil" to carry Ohio.

At the political level, Obama's big achievement has been the expansion of the electoral map for his party. He won Indiana and North Carolina  once, and Virginia, Colorado, Florida and Ohio twice. George W. Bush won all six of these states twice.

One-third of Americans live in California, Texas, Florida and New York. Florida is the only true swing state, though Texas, where Clinton is polling far better than Obama, is becoming tighter, in Will's view. In 2020 and 2024, Georgia and Arizona will become true swing states.

Some say demography is destiny. Whether that's true or not, it is not working for Republicans. Forty percent of the people in New York City and 55 percent of the citizens of Miami were born in other nations.

Will told attendees that every four years the white percentage of the electorate declines by 2.6 percent. The Monday before he spoke at Inside Alternatives, Will spent some time with Rep. Mike Coffman, representing Arapahoe County outside of Denver. They visited a Hispanic charter school as well as Korean and Ethiopian neighborhoods. Coffman has 30,000 Ethiopian-Americans in his district.

America's complexion is clearly changing. "I think it is great," Will said. "Some people don't."

Then there is the gap between college-educated Americans, who have very high levels of employment, and the rest. Many who didn't get far in college have just reason to believe the modern economy has no real place for them.

"If Hillary Clinton wins, it will be because of college-educated white women and because she carries all college-educated white people," Will said. In the past, this group has gone Republican.

Which brought Will to the subject of the Donald. Will has called Trump an "ignoramus" and a "vulgarian" and Trump has called Will a "loser" and far worse. In June, Trump's attacks upon an Indiana judge he called "Mexican" prompted Will to change his registration from Republican to "unaffiliated."

Yesterday, Will was more measured. Come next Monday's debate, Clinton will try to "detonate" Trump, who won't have a teleprompter.

Trump's advisors have been telling him "to restrain his persona, but his persona is what got him there," Will explained. That is like asking Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones "to play chamber music."

Will then speculated on why Trump won't release his tax returns. First, he probably isn't nearly as rich as he claims. Second, he isn't as charitable as he says. Third, his tax returns might expose close ties to odious Russian oligarchs. As an aside, the revelations about both the Trump and Clinton foundations have illuminated much detail about the grimy underbelly of the charity world, but that's me talking.

So, why isn't Will voting for either party's nominee? "I think my conservative credentials are in pretty good order," he said, noting that he voted for Goldwater and was chosen by William F. Buckley Jr. as National Review's first Washington, D.C., editor.

"Not voting is an expression of opinion," he declared. He may write in for Mitch Daniels or Ben Sasse or another serious conservative but doesn't consider Libertarian candidate Gary ("Where is Aleppo?") Johnson serious. "Third parties are like wasps; they sting and die."

If elected, Trump would have the power to unilaterally impose tariffs on imports and tell Americans what they will pay for them. Trump has promised "to be on a par with Hillary Clinton" when it comes to executive orders.

Neither candidate has addressed America's unfunded, unsustainable entitlement system. In fact, both want more and bigger entitlements.

Clinton wants to strengthen Social Security and to prop up crumbling Obamacare by adding a public option. Trump wants to create a new entitlement—six weeks paid maternity leave. Not to be outdone, Clinton's campaign promptly declared they would double it to 12 weeks.

"They are in exact agreement," Will said. Don't talk about the problem, just make it worse.

Then there is foreign policy. Will called the invasion of Iraq the "worst foreign policy mistake in American history" and estimated that we've only "paid for 20 percent of it." Clinton supported that until the polls turned against the war.

But what if some hot-headed ship captain in the South China Sea fires a missile? Will thinks Trump's reaction could be truly scary. Clinton could do almost everything wrong but "she won't blow up the world."

Who is responsible for this terrible choice, the American public or the media?

The media gave Trump an estimated $2 billion in free publicity. There is no question people liked watching Trump. He is "as entertaining as a trainwreck," Will said.

That's why he blames the American people. Both candidates reflect what they want on Social Security and Medicare.

It's understandable why many people, particularly those who didn't attend college, are all teed off. "If I hadn't [had a real] raise in 40 years, I'd be cranky too."

What about the Supreme Court? Conservatives think it matters terribly, but Will predicted Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will remain there until "she is 120."

Trump produced a list of 12 conservative jurists handed to him by the Federalist Society and then revealed his ignorance for the umpteenth time, saying his sister, a respected Federal judge, signed the same bill as Justice Samuel Alito. "Justices don't sign bills," Will said. "The Republicans have nominated a candidate who can't pass a 4th grade civics test."

How did the Republicans wind up with Trump? First, America has totally blurred the lines between governance and the Kardashian's world. Second, they had 17 candidates, so name recognition alone gave Trump the ability to start out with 25% of the vote. Third, many non-Republicans were able to vote in Republican primaries and most of them went for the Donald.

Will thinks the party may address that last problem in 2020. But he also thinks Trump may have opened the door for far smarter, much richer celebrities like Mark Cuban to run for president.

Asked before his talk if he could discern any rays of sunshine, Will replied, "You are asking the wrong guy."

As for the outcome of the election, he predicted whoever wins, their honeymoon will be over by noon on Wednesday, Nov. 9.