The General Election's Resemblance to Football Season Part 1
Is Mitt Romney the Republican Party's JaMarcus Russell?
There are significant similarities between the General Election and
NFL’s Football Season. Both of them are zero sum games at multiple
levels. That is to say that both the Electoral College and the NFL
Standings allow only closed number of possibilities. Both last about 5
months (Duration of time between the time when nominations are sewn up
and the election is approximately 5 months as is Football Season). Both
are dependant on the perceived value of television advertising. And both
have idiotic pundits that expound their opinions and prejudices ad
nauseum.
I’m the kind of person who groans whenever I hear the
sports announcer praise whoever is winning at that particular moment
only to do an about face whenever the momentum shifts. And this is
something that has steadily gotten worse over the years. I never thought
that I would miss Howard Cosell!
That being said, even the worst
Sports Commentator is superior to the political season talking heads.
They are, at best, trained teleprompter monkeys who often fail to do the
most basic research on the subjects of which they pretend expertise in
front of the public. They are, at their worst, party hacks that
routinely vomit up talking points according to an unseen playbook bent
on manipulating public opinion. I’ve often felt that a political hack
doing his show would be indistinguishable from a kid flipping burgers
for a living if the minimum wage kid was put in a suit and told to read
off of a teleprompter. Televised election analysis often leaves me with a
sincere feeling that if the pundit arrived on my doorstep immediately
after the show, unzipped his fly and urinated directly in my ear, it
would be more honest and more respectful than what was just presented as
election analysis!
But, there are stronger similarities to
Football than inane and purile commentators. There is a similarity in
the calendars and the lack of time to recover from a slow start.
So
where is the Election in Football Season terms? We’ve really been at
this for a little over a month or so since Romney formally wrapped up
the nomination. The sniping between Obama and Romney before that fairly
counts as Pre Season. That would put us at about the equivalent of Week
5 – the beginning of October. That is to say, the beginning of October
in Football Season is similar to we are in the Election Season as of
this writing, Aug 3, 2012. Strong trends are starting to emerge when we
find ourselves this far into both cycles.
Teams that are 4-1 and
3-2 in Week 5 are in excellent shape and (generally speaking) tend to
continue this trend to post season. And the reverse is often true as
well. Teams that find themselves at 1-4 and 2-3 in Week 5 very rarely
turn it around in time to make a post-season appearance.
In the
past two weeks, the big Election Season stories have been Romney’s
inexplicable hesitance to show his tax returns and his foreign gaffes.
We have seen a slight bit of movement in the polls as a result, but we
still have weeks to go. There’s a reason we don’t just give the Lombardi
trophy to whoever is the most winning team after week 5.
Ultimately,
“If the election were held today…”speculation has as much relevance as
“If these two teams were playing the SuperBowl today” speculation!
(Especially in Week 5!)
We still have most of the season’s games to play. And anything can still happen.
It
is not as simple as looking at scoreboard or a Standings chart to
determine who is ahead. Unfortunately, we have to rely on pollsters to
see who’s winning from week to week. And if you can imagine a scoreboard
that phrases questions to reflect its own agenda, then you have an
accurate idea of how problematic it is to rely on pollsters for an
accurate score.
So to measure the “Standings” as of “Week 5”, I’ve
used 3 pollsters. One conservative (Rasmussen), one liberal (HuffPo),
and one without a clear agenda (270towin.com)
Here is the movement from the middle of July to the beginning of August-
Rasmussen mid July
Obama 247 Romney 191
| Rassmussen early August
Obama 297 Romney 212
|
HuffPo mid July
Obama 281 Romney 191
| HuffPo early August
Obama 332 Romney 206
|
270tw mid July
Obama 217 Romney 191
| 270tw early August
Obama 319 Romney 206
|
|
What is still going on is a feud between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Mitt Romney. Harry Reid has upped the ante and put Romney into position where he must either reveal his tax returns or face August with the spectre hovering over his campaign that he paid close to 0% in taxes.
The timing of this is significant. It is the equivalent of having a 1-4 Football team in early October and having a swiss cheese Defensive line. We have the party conventions/week long commercials at the end of this month.
The non partisan Tax Policy Center has determined that Romney’s proposed tax changes amount to a tax increase for everyone who is not part of the rich 1%! Romney’s behavior during the past 10 years and whether or not he paid close to 0% in taxes is very relevant. The unemployment numbers are still an abomination, raising taxes at a time like this on the majority of the population so that the wealth of our nation can continue to be plundered by white collar criminals is not the correct course for this nation no matter how many times you repeat “job creator”. Romney needs to disown this proposal now. His credibility is non-existent as long as he evades telling us what he paid in taxes and requesting that the rest of us pay more.
The Republican party has a lot invested in this portion of the Election season. Not just the record amount of money that the asinine Citizen’s United decision has polluted the election campaigns with, but also time (the Republican primary season was long, silly and exhaustive) and good will. And by good will, I mean good will directed at the party leadership. That’s the good will of citizens giving the G.O.P. leadership the benefit of the doubt and not thinking that they would deliberately sabotage an economic recovery and try to prolong the misery of a horrible economic downturn in order to gain political advantage.
Possibly the biggest investment in the 2012 election occurred in January 2009 when a meeting was held in D.C. and the leadership of the G.O.P. agreed to a universal opposition to everything that Obama proposed. This was at the time when the American people desperately needed all help the government could offer and it needlessly prolonged the misery of the Great Recession in order for the Republicans to be able to hammer Obama on the economy exactly at this moment in time.
Repulsive as this was, it was nonetheless a record investment in someone whom the powerful are confident to be a dynamic player.
It is very similar to the way late Raiders owner Al Davis invested $31.5 million, setting a rookie salary record, in JaMarcus Russell. JaMarcus Russell was drafted in 2007 by the Raiders amid glowing reviews from most sports experts at the time. He was quickly revealed as an expensive oaf who got fined for being overweight, couldn’t be bothered with team meetings because he wanted to go to Vegas and showed up to play hung over from purple drank! (Please understand, I am NOT accusing Romney of this behavior. Although I do hate politicians and wealthy parasites to such a great extent that I can say I find that to be an amusing image!)
There was a particularly harsh game where he failed to complete half of his passes, two of them going to the Broncos. He blamed the refs for calling those interceptions. And he tried to put the best possible spin on this by saying “I think I did all right…I try to play with no regrets.”
Romney seems to be following the same pattern by not releasing his returns and then attempting to blame everyone but himself for his stubbornness in not revealing what would answer Reid’s questions in an instant.
Al Davis responded to Russell’s abysmal performance by essentially doubling down on his prized quarterback. He fired coach Lane Kiffin rather than admit that his $31.5 million investment was a bust and change the game plan.
We are seeing a similar attitude when it comes to supporting the Republican presumptive nominee.
Compared to an exhaustive and absurd primary season, fantastic amounts of money channeled to advertisers through SuperPACs, and deliberately making the US economy worse just for ammo vs Obama right at this point in time…$31.5 million would be getting off cheap.
With that kind of advantage, he should be riding far higher that he is. Romney’s performance is as dismal as JaMarcus Russell’s. It is truly sad that he is the only alternative to four more years of Obama.
The Raiders, in retrospect, no doubt wish that Al Davis would have cut their losses, dumped Russell and come up with an alternate game plan. It is still not too late for the Republicans. Romney is not formerly the nominee until the convention. Ron Paul is still running.
And the Republicans might just be able to get Tim Tebow. I’m sure that would come as a relief to the New York Jets!
