Will the Phillies doom John McCain?
John McCain is seemingly staking his electoral hopes on Pennsylvania -- a state where he doesn't look competitive right now (see poll chart at the end of this post), but never mind that for a moment -- and, in particular, on the Philadelphia suburbs.
But something else is happening in Philadelphia right now, something much bigger than a presidential election: a World Series! :)
I kid, sort of, but actually this is a serious question. With the best-of-seven series tied at 1-1, there are guaranteed to be three World Series games in Philly -- tomorrow, Sunday and Monday -- and, depending on how things go, there could potentially be a Game 6 and 7 back in Tampa on Wednesday and Thursday. If the Phillies win, we could be looking at a victory parade in Philadelphia next weekend... two or three days before the election!
So, the question is: how difficult is it going to be for McCain to break through all the baseball-related noise, which I imagine must be pretty huge in the local media and around area water coolers, to capture the public's attention in the coming week? (It'll be equally difficult for Obama, of course, but he's already ahead, so he doesn't really need the public to pay attention.)
Say what you will about the relative importance of sports and politics, but there's a reason the parties avoid scheduling their conventions during the Olympics, and it isn't because these sorts of distractions don't matter. Indeed, once upon a time, it was widely assumed that the World Series was such a distraction for the whole nation that presidential campaigning would drastically taper off during the Series. Baseball doesn't enjoy that sort of stature anymore, but when the local team in the nation's most important swing region (if you believe the McCain strategy, anyway) is playing for its first championship since 1980, that's a whole different story.
Bottom line, there's only so much news that the average JoeSixpack the Plumber Citizen can take in at once, and right now, I would think the average Philadelphia-area resident's news-watching priorities are something like: 1. Phillies. 2. Phillies. 3. The election. 4. Annoyance at campaign ads during Phillies games. 5. GO PHILLIES!!! Am I wrong about this?
* * * * *
Anyway, about those polls:
Unless there's something very screwy with a whole lot of polls, this Phillies thing may be a moot point.
But something else is happening in Philadelphia right now, something much bigger than a presidential election: a World Series! :)
I kid, sort of, but actually this is a serious question. With the best-of-seven series tied at 1-1, there are guaranteed to be three World Series games in Philly -- tomorrow, Sunday and Monday -- and, depending on how things go, there could potentially be a Game 6 and 7 back in Tampa on Wednesday and Thursday. If the Phillies win, we could be looking at a victory parade in Philadelphia next weekend... two or three days before the election!
So, the question is: how difficult is it going to be for McCain to break through all the baseball-related noise, which I imagine must be pretty huge in the local media and around area water coolers, to capture the public's attention in the coming week? (It'll be equally difficult for Obama, of course, but he's already ahead, so he doesn't really need the public to pay attention.)
Say what you will about the relative importance of sports and politics, but there's a reason the parties avoid scheduling their conventions during the Olympics, and it isn't because these sorts of distractions don't matter. Indeed, once upon a time, it was widely assumed that the World Series was such a distraction for the whole nation that presidential campaigning would drastically taper off during the Series. Baseball doesn't enjoy that sort of stature anymore, but when the local team in the nation's most important swing region (if you believe the McCain strategy, anyway) is playing for its first championship since 1980, that's a whole different story.
Bottom line, there's only so much news that the average Joe
* * * * *
Anyway, about those polls:
Unless there's something very screwy with a whole lot of polls, this Phillies thing may be a moot point.
posted by Brendan Loy at
10/24/2008 12:19:00 PM
