Thursday, January 3, 2008

Opening Day

Today's the official opening day of the 2008 election season, with the first game being played in Iowa. I confess to being a political junkie, and I'll be taking a hit off of the "caucus" tonight. But it really is a silly game that's being played. First, the "rules" for a caucus are completely different from the "rules" for the rest of the "season". Second, the "game" will be played in Iowa, which is really a minor league state at best. Third, the "umpires" in the media have already decided what the final score should be, and they will spin the numbers to fit their narrative.
The population of Iowa is a small percentage of the country, and only a small percentage of them go to the caucus. Then, there are the arcane rules which are different for Democrats than they are for Republicans. The Democrats have the equivalent of the "designated hitter" rule, where if your candidate does poorly, you get to substitute a more successful one.
For sheer entertainment value, you can't beat the "umpires". Those "unbiased" media pundits who will be keeping score and declaring the "winners". They've already decided who will be the "stars", and what constitutes a "good game" or "bad game" for those chosen stars. The players who are not chosen "stars" will be ignored, no matter how well they play the game.
Most of the audience will only see the box score and hear the pundits reports of who had a good game. Only the political junkies will dig deeper into the play-by-play. The pundits will do their best to claim that this is "the most meaningful game of the season", but as I wrote a few days ago in "On A Limb", I have a feeling that this season could be much longer.
It is a ridiculous system, but as a junkie, I'll say "play ball."

3 comments:

Demeur said...

I love how the "umps" have basically removed the following players from the game:

On the Dem side
Dodd
Kucinich
Gravel
Biden
And soon to be benched Richardson

On the Repub side
Keyes
Hunter
Paul
I think Thompson is only there for entertainment purposes and McCain will claim an old elbow injury and leave after this game.

Mauigirl said...

Pygalgia, you're so right. How can the "umpires" declare after one caucus in a minor state like Iowa that certain players are "in" or "out"?

Kucinich has basically removed himself by telling everyone ahead of time that he'll back Obama if he doesn't succeed in Iowa.

I'm not sure McCain would quit after Iowa - he is hoping to do well in New Hampshire.

Pygalgia, I'm a junkie too - and so's my 89-year-old mom. She loves this stuff!

Mauigirl said...

Pygalgia, I'm back again...Fran tagged me for the "environmental meme" so I just tagged you. Check it out and see if you'd like to participate. It's not your typical meme!