Elections bring out two amusing American cultural tendencies:
The prevailing view of numbers and math as magical creatures, rather than common-sense tools for understanding the world, and The obsession with forcing a sports analogy on everything that moves.Over 24 hours since Super Tuesday, I’ve seen the Dem primaries compared on Daily Kos with numerous sports. “It’s the Superbowl after one quarter and Bernie is down 10-7...” “It’s like Bernie’s down 30-20 after the first quarter of a basketball game...”
No, sillies.
In football, a team can score two touchdowns in the last minute. In basketball, teams have gone 10-0 in the last minute. So with 3 quarters to go, of course anything seems possible… except that the Dem primaries are nothing like football or basketball. Delegates are awarded roughly proportionally. There’s only one Vermont and it’s behind us; everywhere else, a candidate with Hillary’s name recognition and broad support will inevitably continue collecting lots of delegates state after state.
The horse-race analogy I saw on the rec list last night is a bit more apt. Bernie’s fallen behind after a quarter-lap, and now he has to catch up while Hillary continues to run ahead. However, it’s a bit simplistic because a horse race is one and done, just run around the flat track and it’s over. Doesn’t quite capture the Dem primary’s varying terrain and grueling nature.
So last night I tried to put it into perspective, by invoking…
The DecathlonYes, the sport that made Caitlyn Jenner (then still Bruce) a national hero and global celebrity in 1976. You compete in 10 different track and field events over 2 days. You gain points according to an algebraic formula. In a nutshell, if you can do run/jump/throw well enough to clear the Olympic preliminary heats into the semifinals for that particular event, you will gain about 1000 points at the decathlon for that event. If you’re just a not-half-bad amateur, you might get 600-700 points. To be Olympic competitive in the decathlon, you need to average >800 points per event.
Drumroll… the analogy: we’re after 3 events, and Bernie’s down by ~500 points. Events 4-5 look favorable to Hillary, and Day 2’s five events are projected to be a wash at best.
Now, people who treat math like a mythical beast, would go “it’s only 500, the final score will be 8,000-plus, and there’s still 7,000 potential points in the bag”. But unless Hillary breaks a leg, or gets disqualified at an event, she’s likely to increase the gap by the halfway mark, and to collect at least 600-700 points each event after that.
Bernie will have to outdo himself for the rest of the day, and cram up for some special tricks on Day 2.
Or…. pray for Hillary to break a leg.
There’s absolutely no reason for Bernie to give up, first of all no one expected him to be in this Olympic final so it’ll be a shame not to finish it. But that’s how it looks.
Don’t like the decathlon? Here’s an analogy closer to the American mainstream….
Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the first woman to compete in a men’s PGA tournament. A Golf TournamentDay 1 of a 4-day golf tournament is over, and Bernie is 8 strokes behind Hillary. He kept it close the first 7-8 holes and even led after Hole 2, but she really aced the Back 9, under conditions she excels at. Unfortunately for Bernie, the forecast predicts similar weather conditions for tomorrow afternoon.
Again, numbers-are-magical-winged-creatures folks will go, “but there are ~200 strokes remaining in the bag, what’s 8 strokes back? Nothing”. Ignoring the fact that at the pro level, most holes end up in a par or birdie, and conversely no one can do a hole-in-one on a Par 5. So while Hillary can conceivably double-bogey a couple of holes that Bernie birdies, and then it will be close once again, the facts are she’s in good shape, Day 2 conditions actually look good for her right now, and barring a major meltdown (or…. breaking a leg) it is very unlikely to happen. Bernie is more likely to be ~12 strokes back by next evening, than to make it closer.
Nice analogy, no?
But something’s missing… because in both analogies, each person competes against oneself, collecting points independently. By contrast, the primaries are a zero-sum game. Every point you gain, is at your opponent’s expense.
Time to call in….
A Grand Master Chess Duel The Cold Chess War: Fischer vs. Spassky for the world title, 1972.Bernie is the challenger in a best-of-30 Grand Master chess duel. After 8 games the score is 5-3 Hillary. In Game 9 Bernie will play Black, in which he’d lost Games 5 and 7.
Repeat after me: numbers-are-magical-creatures folks will say, “there are 22 points remaining, anything might happen”.
But at this level, most games end up in a draw, which splits the game’s single point 0.5-0.5 between the rivals. And now that Hillary’s up by 2, she can easily play for a draw in most of the remaining games. Except for the next one, in which she’d be silly not to press her clear advantage and momentum.
Now… Hillary might suffer a nervous breakdown, or a brain freeze, commit rookie errors and then Bernie wins 2 quick ones. Which still only puts him at an overall draw, and he must win the duel outright because he’s the challenger; 15-15 goes to her. But right now, his main headache is how to stop losing each time he plays in Black. If he doesn’t, then this duel will end Hillary’s way, well before Game 30.
So the chess analogy has that zero-sum aspect, but the proportional incremental gains nature of the primaries, is not quite reflected in it (although as said, most grand-master games ends in a 0.5-0.5 split). There is one dude who had figured out the chess analogy though, and he’s President now ;)
Tachless:Bernie has done an amazing job. A few months ago, no one had expected him to be at this position now, a viable challenger to the front-runner. More importantly, he’s raised the right issues and moved the conversation in a good direction (alas, that cannot be said about some of his most vocal fans on this site).
Without Bernie, this would have been an interminable, insufferable coronation. And perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy: in democracy people hate coronations, so no matter how thoroughly Hillary’s machine had pre-cleared the field, it was enough for one challenger with guts and with positions that speak to the Democratic base, to turn it into a real contest.
Regardless, this is now Hillary’s race to lose. It will require a major scandal or faux-pas on her part, or a series of new, super-effective rabbits out of Team Bernie’s hats, to even things up.
Disclaimer: for the umpteenth time, I’m neutral in this race. But I too like my sports analogies, as long as they’re done right.
Hope you liked mine.
BASKETBALL UPDATE:A couple of Bernie fans have challenged in the comments, my dismissal of the basketball analogy. Let me take you up on your challenge.
Ok, so basketball it is, and Bernie’s down 30-20 after 1 quarter. But the way we got here, is it was close until Bernie’s #1 star got a concussion and was carted off, prompting Hillary to a 16-8 run. The medics are saying the star won’t be back before the second half, at best.
So even though a 10-point deficit after 1 quarter is definitely surmountable, the situation right now is that Bernie is looking at Quarter 2 focused on preventing Hillary from running up the score. If he succeeds and keeps it in the low teens, *and* his #1 star returns in perfect form right at the start of Quarter 3 — then he’s got a fighting chance. If *either* of these fail, then he’s looking at a second half that will be one interminable, insufferable stretch of garbage time.
Of course, he can also aim to injure a couple of Hillary’s stars (which, again, seems to be the preferred strategy to some fans on this site…)
But it’s a risky strategy which might end up getting his side slapped with technical fouls and having players/coaches ejected.
See, proper analogies (or should I say, reality-based ones) try to retain the context in order to deliver insight. You don’t just pluck a random sport out of the air, and slap some context-free numbers next to it like so many pancakes.
Now good luck in that second quarter.