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Sunday, November 07, 2004


A small football Sunday, football analogy political observation.

A little recent history, to keep the forest in sight in spite of the trees:

By quick check of numbers (I haven't double checked to see if these are exact, but they are close enough) in 1992 the Democrats had 56 seats in the Senate and 266 in the House, had recently held 34 of 50 governorships, and controlled 29 state legislatures with the Republicans controlling only 7 and the rest divided.

Today, pending a few outcomes from last Tuesday that were still uncertain when last I looked, they have about 45 seats in the Senate (down 18%) and 201 in the House (-24%), and no more than 22 governorships (-35%) to at least 28 for the Republicans. Going into Tuesday the Democrats controlled only 17 state legislatures (-50%) to 21 for the Republicans with the rest divided.

Now, all this week since Tuesday Democratic pundits have been producing explanations about how they lost what was really a close race only due to [pick favorite:] rising evangelicalism, gay-marriage bashing, war fears, failure to motivate their base, failure to get their message out (though there's nothing actually wrong with their message!) ... whatever.

Isn't this a bit like football fans moaning that their team just lost the game by two points only because their damn kicker missed that last-second field goal -- no, the holder botched it -- no, it was the snapper who screwed up ... after blowing a 24-point, second-quarter lead?