From BuzzFlash.com
I'm not a basketball fan. Oh, I used to follow basketball. And living in Chicago in the 1990s, you couldn't help but follow Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
One element of basketball that I hated even when I did follow the sport was the last two minutes of the game. Teams always seem to have tons of timeouts that come out of nowhere. And the team that is behind fouls the other team to force them to the free throw line, which slows down the game even more.
I feel like the Democratic presidential race is a basketball game in the last 2 minutes. Barack Obama is winning, but not by a huge margin. Hillary Clinton is behind and committing fouls to try and get her back in the game.
And it's boring and really not entertaining.
Basketball is a rather popular sport, more so than hockey right now. And in hockey, the last two minutes of a close game are exciting. Often, the losing team will pull its goalie to give them an extra skater. Rare is a penalty in the last two minutes. And the best part, each team gets ONE timeout for the whole game. And yet, basketball is more popular than hockey.
In basketball, the losing team does what it can to try and come back. As distasteful as the strategy is, in basketball, without it, you can't win. But it involves not so much winning, but forcing the winning team to make mistakes. In the basketball analogy, you slow things down to take away momentum and force (ideally) a poor free-throw shooter hoping that person misses shots.
But as basketball fans can tell you, the strategy almost never works. And when it does, the result is usually a lot of luck from the comeback team and horrible mistakes from the team that had been winning.
Obama has done rather well under the circumstances -- he has made some free throws, but has missed a few as well. Clinton has shown expertise in fouling Obama without it being flagrant (in basketball, flagrant fouls allow for more ways to score points for the team in front). Her people say horrible things while the candidate doesn't say them.
And Clinton has also done well in "working the refs." Her masterful "why do I get the first question in the debate" move during the Cleveland debate was a prime example. While Clinton can legitimately complain about her press coverage for most of the campaign, she is getting much more consideration from the press. They won't even touch the credibility of her "35 years of experience" claim, and what that actually means.
So do we blame Clinton for trying this strategy? Yes and no. If winning is the only thing, it's the only thing she can do, even if it is almost certain that it won't work. But in the process, it makes the winning person weaker, regardless of who that is. And there is a rested opponent ready to face the winner of this game. This isn't the important game -- the next one is.
1 comment:
If Clinton and Obama want to make sure one of them actually wins the election, they need to stop flinging dirt at each other. Here’s a simple way to do this:
Both publicly pledge that if are nominated for President, the other candidate will be their first choice for the Vice Presidential spot.
This immediately puts a stop to personal attacks, or calling their rival’s ability into question; you don’t disrespect you’re the person you’ve chosen to be your second-in-command. The candidates can still debate the issues and clarify their differences, but the main focus of their anger and outrage can now be directed at the Bush-McCain policies of the past 8 years.
This fall, Obama or Clinton will need to lead a unified party if they want to ensure victory. This requires the enthusiastic support of the other, and of the voters who voted for him or her in the primaries and caucuses,
Obama-Clinton, Clinton-Obama – either “dream team” is McCain’s worst nightmare. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama can make that nightmare a reality for him now.
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