Campaign Politics: Better Than Sox?

Those with an allergy to sports metaphors in politics had best shut your eyes tight these next two weeks, especially if the Astros from Bush's Houston win tonight to earn a date with Kerry's Red Sox.

The champagne on last night's historic Yankee-killing was barely dry when the presidential ramifications began rolling in. Day to Day's Ken Rudin pointed out this morning that the only times the Red Sox reached the World Series in election years (1912 and 1916), the Democrats won. ElectionProjection.com's Scott Elliott wondered "how many Yankee fans in neighboring New Jersey will decide not to vote for Kerry, an avid Red Sox fan"? The Corner is busy pooh-poohing the prospects of a "Bosox Bounce" (though if this letter to John Derbyshire doesn't make you glad the longhairs vanquished the pinstripes, nothing will); meanwhile the campaign press is mocking the Democrat's fandom: "Kerry watched the game in his Ohio hotel suite on Wednesday night. Some reporters were ushered in to see him seated with aides in a stilted photo-op as he watched the game."

If you thought the Red Sox metaphor couldn't extend to non-candidate Bill Clinton, you thought wrong. "I think President Clinton is the Curt Schilling of this election. He may need a high-top shoe," Democrat pollster Peter Hart told the Cybercast News Service, in reference to the Bubba's increased presence in the final days of the campaign. My favorite take, though, comes from Benjamin Gruenbaum, a northeastern liberal Sox/Kerry supporter, writing in The Cornell Daily Sun:

The Red Sox and Kerry are both the good guys in their respective battles, but the way they fight is very different. For one thing, the Sox don't pretend to be anything but what they are.

Ouch! That whole column is worth a look; for nostalgiacs, here's a November 2000 article I wrote about the hilarious, too-good-to-be-true baseball differences between George Bush and Al Gore. And for those who hate baseball metaphors even more than baseball, consider this Ken Rudin-supplied horror: If the World Series goes the full seven games, and there are two rainouts along the way, Game 7 would be played on Election Day.