“Politics [is] allegedly a non-contact sport and certainly not much of a spectator sport…our political conventions are by and large devoid of drama and suspense.”
In the above quote, the late David Halberstam was trying to explain why Americans are more inclined to watch football, rather than, say, baseball, the Oscars, or the political conventions.
I don’t watch the political conventions for the same reasons that I don’t really watch the Oscars. If I want to hear speeches I can go to the synagogue; as much as congregations complain, no sermon ever goes on for four hours with commercial breaks, even (and especially) on Yom Kippur.
In any case, it’s no accident that Halberstam compares politics to football, or even that the conventions are planned so close to football season. It has been said that politics is show business for ugly people; I would venture that it more resembles athletics for the uncoordinated. The sport to which it has been most compared to, is of course, football, which follows somewhat from the obvious military imagery (the suitcase with our country’s nuclear launch codes is the “football”) to Sen. Eugene McCarthy’s assertion that running for office was like coaching football: one had to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it was actually important.
However, the most salient features of today’s politics are more reflective of whose “team” one is on more than what one’s true beliefs or ideals really are. In the United States, that for the most part leaves us with a two-team league. Unfortunately, this means that every game pits the same two teams against each other, over and over again. This reminds me of how much I was suffering during this past year’s Super Bowl week: as a rabid Jet fan, I had to choose between the Pats and Giants. Imagine that every game, every week, on every channel (Basic! Premium! IO! DTV! Satellite!) was Pats vs Giants. Pre-season. Regular season. Playoffs. Super Bowl. Now maybe one understands why partisan politics drive Americans nuts.
Although, it should be said, most football fans would watch even the NFL even if it only had two teams. Including me. I suppose one might say a similar phenomenon exists in politics. Somebody's going to watch the conventions.
For the record, I rooted for the Pats in the Super Bowl. I didn’t want to have to deal with the consequences of a (possible [CHOKE]) Giant upset. I also was hoping that the Pats would finally knock the Miami Dolphins off the “undefeated” pedestal. Besides, to my mind, Don Shula embodies football evil incarnate far more than Bill Belichick. And Shula didn’t need a hoodie to radiate malevolence; ask any NFL official who had to deal with him. Or Walt Michaels.
(Imagine this presidential election: Belichick vs Shula. I'd write in for Parcells.)
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