The Silly Season: It’s Labor Day and, hard to believe, but now the presidential campaign begins in earnest. All the shouting for the past year has only been a preview for the shouting to come.

Hillary Clinton has been busy milking the rich for money in private events: Jimmy Buffett, Jon Bon Jovi, Calvin Klein, and Harvey Weinstein at just one event. Today she is scheduled to be in Cleveland, Ohio. Hampton, Ill., and Tampa, Fla. in a classic Labor Day campaign marathon.

Donald Trump teased Clinton for campaigning today.  He tweeted yesterday, “The polls are close so Crooked Hillary is getting out of bed and will campaign tomorrow. Why did she hammer 13 devices and acid-wash e-mails?”

But Trump will be out there, too. He’s appearing at a round table with union leaders in Cleveland and at a fair in Youngstown, Ohio.

With Trump inching up in the polls, the Sept. 26 debate is a must win for both. Clinton is considered the savviest and most experienced debater of the two, but Trump got where he is by breaking every rule of political predictability.

The NY Times “Upshot” gives Clinton an 85 percent chance of being elected — down five points. It’s getting tighter. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has Clinton leading by 3.9 percent. It was nearly 8 percent.

The Other Guy: Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who gets virtually no press coverage, is on track for the best third party showing since Ross Perot, who won nearly 20 percent of the vote in 1992. Johnson is at about 10.

  The Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia endorsed Johnson for president saying, “We found him to be knowledgeable but unscripted, reasonable and good-humored, self-assured but free from arrogance, willing and able to address every question, consistent in his beliefs without being dogmatic, even-tempered, curious — and in all respects optimistically, realistically presidential.”

In other words, he doesn’t have a chance in hell.

Permawar: President Obama and Russia’s Vladimir Putin spent part of their time at the G-20 summit in China trying to work out a cease-fire in Syria. They didn’t get there, but their representatives are still working on it. “Given the gaps that exist, that’s a tough negotiation,” Obama said today.

Social Upheaval: The populist anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party handed a political warning to Chancellor Angela Merkel, finishing second with more than 21 percent of the vote in state elections in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats finished third. The results are a sign of growing unhappiness with Merkel’s immigration policy.

More than a million immigrants arrived and stayed in Germany in 2015, overwhelming the country’s ability to screen and vet them for asylum. The refugees are predominantly Muslim and will have a big impact on the predominantly Christian country of 82 million people.

Sharks!: Our Chief Aviation Correspondent, Al Freihofer, has been hunkered down under bad weather in Baltimore all weekend binge-watching shark movies: Swamp Sharks, Atomic Sharks, Sharknado, Sharktopus vs Pteracuda. You get the idea. He sent a list of observations about shark movies, and while we don’t have space for all, here’s a sampling.

1. Leaning out over the water in one of these movies is just plain foolhardy, and everybody knows it.
2. Sharks can fly. (Ed: That’s the aviation angle.)
3. You can kill a shark with a canoe paddle in some movies, while you cannot kill a shark with a chainsaw in others.
4. If you see a shark from the window seat of your Southwest flight, you are wise to move to an aisle seat.
5. An atomic shark’s fin is always red.
6. Swimming as fast as you can towards the boat is rarely successful. If you are already at the side of the boat but still in the water, pulling your legs up can be helpful unless the shark is atomic or a pterodactyl hybrid.

-30-