Three cheers for the underdogs
Between Super Tuesday and the Super Bowl, political and sports pundits have clogged the airways with prognostications, most of them proven wrong. Once underdogs: Republican presidential candidate John McCain and N.Y. Giants quarterback Eli Manning, are in their ascendancy. Manning delivered an astonishing number of completed passes to trounce the undefeated New England Patriots Sunday; McCain recovered from predicted defeat in North Carolina and a dearth of dollars to overtake rival Mitt Romney, the guy with pockets deeper than Bill Gates.
Now, I’ve never been a football fan. Even when my grandson Devon was playing, I couldn’t bear to watch the games. He could run like the wind and had that rare gift of always knowing where the ball was. Still, his opponents usually outweighed him three to one and when he got sacked it was brutal. He’s playing basketball this season but loves to watch football. Peyton Manning was his hero last year, so I assume he was pulling for brother Eli.
On Super Bowl Sunday, we used to hit the slopes at Wrightwood, snow permitting, because they were predictably empty. But in Montana, we can do that almost any day, and at the residence hotel where I stay in Bozeman, Sunday supper was a Super Bowl party with great food and the game displayed on a huge new flat-screen TV in the cozy lounge. I couldn’t resist.
I sat with two longtime Montana guys who knew all about football. Everyone who hadn’t taken the Patriots in a betting pool was cheering loudly for Manning. The youngest son of a great quarterback and the baby brother of an even better one, according to AP sports columnist Jim Litke, Manning proved “cooler than the falling temperatures by leading the giants 83 yards on a final scoring drive to stun the patriots 17-14 and cap one of the greatest upsets in sports.” The gentlemen with whom I sat agreed it was the best game they’d ever seen. All I knew was that a few weeks earlier, fans and the media were trashing Manning. Now Peyton and Dad will have to make room for his MVP award in the family trophy case. Eat your heart out, Tom Brady.
Anyway, if this column is all over the map, it’s because the whole country is all over the map. Sports aside, the political map of red and blue states is also in turmoil. The Sunday morning talk shows were awash in failing punditry. Forget what they said last year, they were equally wrong last week. Barack Obama wins the black vote in South Carolina though he was considered not black enough. Hillary Clinton, the policy wonk extraordinaire deemed unbeatable in debate, sags in the polls after the hopeful First Husband slings mud at her only surviving opponent.
I’m just sad to see so many worthy candidates squeezed out of the race by those same pundits declaring, so very early on, that the two celebrity candidates- the first black man and the first woman to actually have a chance-would dominate the discussion.
Is it possible those of the Republican persuasion wanted it that way? Perhaps they were thinking the two “minority” candidates would be easier to beat in November than such perfectly qualified contenders as, say, Bill Richardson or Joe Biden? Their campaigns were marginalized before the voters even had a chance to hear what they had to say. That’s a shame. Talk about gravitas and bona fides, they’ve got that in spades: Richardson on conservation, the environment and immigration, Biden on defense and foreign policy. Their voices were squeezed out by the celebrity-hungry media before anyone ever got to debate solutions to climate change, alternative energy and environmental protection.
By the time this piece sees ink, the fate of the anointed leaders may also have been decided. Earlier last year, I had the option of registering to vote in California or Montana since I was spending equal time at my homes in both states. I chose Montana, thinking that my vote might mean more since California votes have never counted for much, coming as they did so late in the process. Well, the Governator changed all that by bumping up the preliminary election date. But, for me, it turns out the issue is moot. Montana has a Republican caucus scheduled for Super Tuesday; Democrats have bupkis. No primary, no caucus. I didn’t even get a ballot. Go figure.
But before I tune out the media chatter, before I have to choose from the limited field that remains, I’ll keep listening and reading at least until Tuesday night when the pundits once again proclaim winners and losers. And maybe once again they’ll be proven wrong.
And that’s worth a laugh. Let’s hear it for the underdogs!