On August 4, Pew’s reported an increase in "Obama fatigue". Four days later, the Senator from Illinois began a long-planned ten-day vacation. Coincidence? Unlikely.
Since the early days of this campaign, Team Obama has demonstrated tremendous skills in clock management -- a term that will be familiar to any one who has played or watched sports such as football and basketball.
While basketball requires physical dexterity, clock management is all about planning, preparedness, strategy and intellect -- qualities we’ll find in our next president. Over the course of this campaign, Senator Obama has leveraged winning basketball insights time and again. Have some fun...
82-games. Each with two halves. Four 12-minute quarters. A 24-second clock. The ten-second rule. Three-second violations. Basketball is all about time. And in a close game, clock management makes all the difference. Here are a few examples of how this has played out over the course of this campaign. Feel free to add your own.
Well-timed Runs
No hoops player can go non-stop for 48 minutes. To pull ahead you need to make calculated runs. Remember back in October of 2007, the news was all Clinton. Big speech here. Helicopter there. Of course, the candidate did soon re-emerge. And when he made his well-timed run leading up to Iowa, I found myself engaged, donating and making calls. If the enthusiasm peaked too early, he may have come up short.
Playing the full 48 minutes
You need to play the full game, as demonstrated in the post-February 5th run.
The Four-Corners Offense
Did you see the Philadelphia debate, when Obama responded to Clinton’s Bosnia story by saying: "I think Senator Clinton deserves the right to make some errors once in a while." I wanted him to attack but Obama knew that the game was already in hand. All he needed to do was run out the clock. I hated when Dean Smith and the Tarheels ran the 4-Corners Offense (it is so boring) and I didn’t like Obama’s response. But they are both winners.
The Full-Court Press
Compare that to Indiana. Team Obama repeatedly reached out to volunteers to make phone calls, make calls, make calls. Ten minutes before the polls closed, they were still imploring folks to GOTV. They knew how tight it was. And some say their ability to keep the score close in Indiana was the final nail in the coffin.
The Well-timed "Touch Foul"
Raising issues that might arise due to a Michigan revote? Let’s call that a touch foul. Stopped the clock on the Michigan issue until after the game was in hand.
The 82-Game Season
50-state strategy.
The Time-Out
Aloha.
24-Second Clock
And while Obama has not seem obsessed with winning every 24-hour news cycle (ala teams Clinton and McCain), I think you’ll find over the next several weeks that they know how to shoot – and shoot – and shoot.
Up until the final horn blows in November.