I'm a sports guy. As such, I often use sports metaphors to explain things to people. In this Presidential election, I believe that Barack Obama is winning handily in the same way that the University of Miami made the wishbone offense obsolete. What's a wishbone? Follow me below the fold...
For years and years, Oklahoma and Nebraska football dominated the game through use of the wishbone offense. It was called the "wishbone" because there were three running backs behind the QB, and it looked like a wishbone. Each running play had three options, and it was impossible to stop. The teams rarely threw the ball; they didn't have to throw. In a 3-year period from 1985-1987, the Oklahoma Sooners won 33 games and only lost 3.
All three losses were to the same team: the Miami Hurricanes.
Jimmy Johnson had been the coach at Oklahoma State, in the same conference as Oklahoma and Nebraska. He had worked for years on how to stop the wishbone, though he never had the players to make it work. When he became the coach at the University of Miami, he finally had the recipe for success. He needed to play defense differently than everybody else - smaller but faster players, even along the defensive line.
After the 1988 Orange Bowl, and after the 1990 Orange Bowl, won by Miami 22-0 over Nebraska, it was clear that you couldn't win running only the wishbone anymore.
Since 1994, the Republicans have run the same playbook, over and over again. Until now, it's been a winning strategy. But Barack Obama understood that to win, he had to change things up. And he has done so:
- The use of the internet. Obama has created the largest base of fundraising and volunteers this nation has ever seen with the help of the liberal netroots. Also, Obama has used the net to get information out to the public both about his plans and to counteract the smear tactics and outright lies that have been so successful.
- The use of cellular phones and digital recorders to further get information out.
- The huge war chest has allowed Obama to do something previously unheard of: the democratic ground game in 2008 is vastly superior to the republican ground game. I live in northwest Broward County, Florida. Obama had opened an office for the entire area, but it wasn't big enough, so they opened a second office a few miles away. About 7 miles to the east is the Deerfield Beach/Lighthouse Point area - and they have an office too.
- A huge voter registration drive has added thousands of new Democratic voters to swing states like Florida
While the election is far from over, at this point Obama is clearly ahead, and may be pulling away - today Rasmussen has Obama up 4, 51-47, in Nevada, and up 3, 50-47, in North Carolina. Without a significant reversal, the Democratic Party will control both Houses of Congress and the White House for the first time since 1994.