In the wee hours of Superbowl Sunday, I sit here reading the freakishly partisan comments on some of the polling diaries and it makes me want to shout: “This is not a sports blog!”
In the comment zone of a sports site, you see people posting mash notes for their team, exalting in the fact that they can be completely partisan, as rude as they want to be, and profess a knowledge of the deeper realities of the sport that also happen to confirm that their team is going to annihilate the other team which will be too busy blowing goats to even score a point. Just in case I need to spell this out: Please stop writing comments as if this were a sports blog and you were just supporting your hometown team.
To drive this home, below the fold I offer “What football would look like if it worked like the Democratic Primary.” Read it and count with me the ways in which treating DKos like a sports blog is killing lady liberty.
What football would look like if it worked like the Democratic Primary
1. The game wouldn’t be decided by the score on the field, but by the vote of fans as they leave the stadium.
And it is an optional vote. Your team might win 70-0 on the issues, but if the fans think the election is wrapped up and head for their cars to beat the rush, your team will lose, lose, lose!
It also means that if your team’s fans were too loud or nasty during the semifinal game, this might piss off fans of the losing team, fans that might otherwise attend the final game and support your team. Doesn't work this way in sports, does work this way in the primaries and general election.
2. In the primary game, people in a certain city don't have to support that city's team. They're supporting the team because they think the team is right. As a result, when you rag on the team, the fans take it personally.
This one is more subtle, but I think just as important. With sports, while I hate the Yankees, it doesn't mean anything about how I feel about New Yorkers who aren't rabid Yankee fans. Likewise, when someone says something bad about the Chicago Bears, I would never take offense (personal note: on this Most Holy Sunday I will utter the small blasphemy that football is not my favorite sport).
This is not true in the primary -- people's allegiance is not an accident of birth but a personal choice. So when your comment says "Clintama is a Congenital Moron" or "Obinton is in the pocket of lobbyists for Corporatist Argentine Pederests" don't be surprised if you make an enemy. And, according to the above rule, the points you are losing for your team are actually the points that decide whether they advance.
(By the way, here is one thing that is true in both sports and elections. If I see a stupid person wearing a Yankees hat is talking trash, I don't go around saying "All New Yorkers are jerks. . . " "Clintonbot" and "Obamabot" are stereotyping terms.)
3. The team from each conference playing in the Superbowl is made up of players from both teams that played in that conference's championship game.
You think you're going to hate it if your team loses the Championship game. But in this world the Giants will have Brett Farve to back up Eli Manning (or vice versa?). And the Patriots get to use any video taping equipment San Diego had lying around. In other words, you want to get to the final game, but you don't want to damage the other team, because their assets become your own.
And you think that if your team loses, you're going to forget about football. But if you might see Farve hit Burress in the end zone, it might be different, right? Both Clinton and Obama are smart enough to realize that they need to offer Edwards a cabinet position (and I'm praying that they would take the steps necessary to keep the others' supporters activated in the general).
4. The winning team gets to decide the future in which your children live.
Oh, yeah. And the number one reason to stop treating the other candidate's supporters like crap is that this is not a @*&# football game.