A few Sundays ago, I tried to make a joke comparing the New
England Patriots, who play in Foxborough, Massachusetts, to the former governor
of that state and current presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. The Patriots were
playing in the AFC Championship without really beating anybody; to that point,
they hadn’t had a victory over a team with a regular season record better than
8-8. Like Mitt Romney, I chided, who currently leads a field of potential
candidates who even Republicans will admit is less than stellar, the Patriots
were paving their way to victory more on the inadequacies of others than on
their own talents.
It was supposed to just be a lame joke that unfairly wrote
off a team I admittedly don’t like. But the more I thought about it, the more
similarities I noticed between the political landscape of the last twelve years
and occurrences in the NFL. The fact
that this will be the third consecutive time the American people will elect a
new president in the same year that they watch the Patriots play in the Super
Bowl is intriguing enough … but does it have any significance? I don’t really
think so. But at least it gives me an excuse to write about both sports and
politics in the same column.
Consider this: the New England Patriots drafted Tom Brady
and hired Bill Belichick in 2000, the same year George W. Bush was elected
president. The following year Bush signed the Patriot Act, Tom Brady became the
starting quarterback in the NFL, and the Patriots won the Super Bowl for that
2001 season. The Patriots and Bush would both win together in 2004, both by a
narrow margin, the Patriots against the St. Louis Rams, Bush against John
Kerry.
After winning again in 2005, the next Super Bowl the Patriots
would play in would be in 2008. Despite being the dominant team for most of the
last decade, the Patriots were upset by the much less experienced New York
Giants, aptly nicknamed “Big Blue,” led by newcomer and relatively unseasoned
quarterback Eli Manning. Sound familiar?
If the Patriots represent an embattled Republican candidate
from a mediocre field looking to recapture the throne, there is also quite the
uncanny resemblance between the Giants and presidential incumbent Barack Obama,
who despite his success in 2008 has not quite been able to deliver on the
potential we saw four years ago. However, the Giants and Obama may be surging
at the right time, and may be able to capitalize on good timing and an
uninspiring opponent to achieve their victory. The Giants are finally healthy
and coming off of wins against arguably the two best teams in the NFL, the
Packers and the 49ers. In the last year
Obama has been able to claim the paramount victory in the war on terror with
the death of Osama bin Laden, he’s ended the war in Iraq, and in the last
several months unemployment has declined significantly.
So what does that mean for tonight? Like I said before,
probably nothing, although I have a feeling the odd similarities will continue
to play themselves out this year. What do I mean by that? I’ll spare you my
political opinion, but let’s just say I have a good feeling about the Giants.