MUCH MALIGNED UNIVERSITY of Michigan head football coach Lloyd Carr gave the above pep-talk to his underdog Wolverines before they met the heavily favored Florida Gators in Tuesday’s regrettably named Capital One Bowl. Since his team lost its season opener to unheralded Appalachian State, Carr has been a dead coach walking. He announced that he would retire after this season weeks ago. If you ask the typical Michigan fan about Lloyd Carr, chances are he’ll do nothing but spew invective assuming, that is, you can get him to stop singing “Hail to the Victors Valiant” long enough to engage you in conversation. But hopefully everyone can agree that Coach Carr’s pep talk swan song was a beauty.
Coach Carr’s pep talk could also apply to the campaigns as they head into battle today. Actually, it could have applied to the campaigns ever since they hit the homestretch. The campaigns that stayed aggressive and made fewer mistakes have the much better chance of celebrating when today is over. Poise, pride and toughness also play major roles. Coach Carr did more than tell his young charges how to win a football game; he did nothing less than describe the path to electoral victory.
Before looking at the individual campaigns to see which ones best followed Coach Carr’s key to victories, I feel compelled to preemptively address any critiques that producing political analysis based on football truisms smacks of the patriarchy running amuck and trivializes the importance of the Iowa caucuses.
Regarding the patriarchy charge, I’ve changed my mind–I refuse to dignify it with a response. On whether or not I’m trivializing the caucuses by applying the wisdom of a former football coach, if Mike Huckabee can formulate foreign policy based on Michael Corleone and Uncle Remus dictums, I can analyze a political horserace though the prism of Lloyd Carr pep talks:
THE REPUBLICANS (in order of finish):
MITT ROMNEY: Team Romney was definitely the most physical team. In a sports context, some would even call them chippy or dirty. They were always the aggressor. The candidate and his minions also maintained their poise. They could have complained about all sorts of media rubbish, like the Boston Globe staking out his house for three months to see if his landscaper ever employed illegal immigrants; they didn’t. The Kennedys have been running for office in the Globe‘s backyard for decades, and the Globe never showed similar industriousness in front of the Kennedys’ Hyannisport compound.
In regards to the Romney knocking the opponent off the line of scrimmage, Terry Eastland’s New Year’s Day analysis is right on the money: “What Mike Huckabee’s odd press conference (Monday) demonstrated is that Mitt Romney has succeeded not merely in putting Huckabee on the defensive on various issues but also in making a mess of his campaign. ”
But will Romney be celebrating at the end of the day? I made my prediction on that score last week–yes.
MIKE HUCKABEE: Mike Huckabee’s conduct down the homestretch would have Lloyd Carr spinning in his grave but for the fact that the coach is still alive. Since jumping out to a double digit lead, Huckabee has committed a veritable Rose Bowl Parade of political gaffes. Far from the being the aggressor, Huckabee has been in a defensive crouch for weeks now. Vacillation, indecision and misstatements have become his calling cards. Also, he hired Ed Rollins to run his campaign. If that’s not the political equivalent of committing turnovers and penalties, I don’t know what is.
Even if Huckabee should prevail tomorrow, the sorry state of his campaign in Iowa’s twilight provides an indication of exactly how far he’ll go.
FRED THOMPSON: With his performance at the Nurse Ratched debate, Fred effectively announced that no one would out-tough him. If the Fred we’ve recently met made himself available for several months rather than a few weeks, Fred would be the favorite today to take the nomination.
JOHN McCAIN: If McCain psychically intuited Lloyd Carr’s words of wisdom long before Carr uttered them, he decided to apply them in New Hampshire rather than Iowa. In New Hampshire, McCain turned into the aggressor. He also has shown considerable poise and toughness, especially when certain intemperate pundits were dismissing his chances. Right now, he’s the deserving favorite in New Hampshire, pretty much regardless of what happens today in Iowa.
The potentially bad news for McCain supporters is that he’s begun making errors. The decision to run an ad calling Romney a phony was a bad one, and his strange defense of that decision on This Week was weak and indecisive. The good news for McCain is he made these missteps when no one was paying attention, what with the Huckabee-Romney steel cage match commanding everyone’s attention. McCain’s in great shape in New Hampshire, but he’ll need to finish strong up there to be celebrating when that primary’s over.
FOR THE DEMOCRATS (also in order of finish):
BARACK OBAMA: Football analogies don’t hold up as well when discussing Democrats for assorted sociological reasons. Democratic politicians more closely resemble soccer players passively passing the ball at mid-field rather than football teams smashing into each other with reckless abandon.
That said, the Democrat who best embodied Lloyd Carr’s maxims is Barack Obama. He kept his poise. And pride. More than any candidate on either side of the aisle, Obama has run a campaign that he can be proud of. Also, his breakthrough in Iowa knocked Hillary and Edwards off their games. When this day is over, Barack Obama will be celebrating.
HILLARY CLINTON: Hillary got so used to being the frontrunner, at some point she stopped being aggressive. In truth, she stopped being anything except the presumptive nominee. When you think about it, none of the energy or intellectual juice in this campaign came from Team Clinton. Hillary obviously thought she was destiny’s daughter and didn’t have to make any plays to secure victory. Tonight she’ll likely pay the price for that hubris.
JOHN EDWARDS: What happened to the sunny populist who sold hope? Now, all Edwards does is spew bile directed at the heartless rich, an odd tack to take for someone who recently built a mansion that would have made the Sun King blush. And then there’s Edwards’ latest Hail Mary–his recent sop to the extreme left that he’ll pretend the surge isn’t working and precipitously withdraw our troops from Iraq, even the ones who are training the Iraqis. Being maneuvered into spluttering rank silliness like that is tantamount to getting knocked off the line of scrimmage.
One note of caution before you run off to InTrade to “buy stock” based on my predictions. I’m the guy who forecast the Republicans would hold the House and Senate in 2006. So either this stuff isn’t easy, or it isn’t easy for me.
Dean Barnett is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
