But Why?

When I was in college, I returned to my high school to watch my brother, Left Wing Jumper, play in a basketball game against my high school's arch-rival. While not great, our high school team was scrappy, gutsy, hard-trying, and hustled a lot. (In other words: we had a lot of white players). As the 4th quarter began to wind down, we found ourselves down by more than two baskets, and the crowd had definitely begun to lose interest. The situation began to look hopeless.

There is one thing though, that riles up any high school basketball crowd ... and that is a dunk. At that very moment, one of my brothers high school classmates (who had been relegated to either textile manager or H2o specialist) turned to me and said, "We need a momentum dunk." And he was right.

But for anyone who knows anything about basketball, you cannot just will a momentum dunk. The situation must present itself, and it must be a natural part of the game. Anyone can film their friend throwing down nasties in their backyard and put it on you tube, but it's the momentum dunks that are the game changers.

When John McCain said that the "economy was fundamentally strong," he committed a text-book turnover. Obama had been playing defense for much of the previous two weeks, and McCain had pulled even (or ahead) in the polls. And then, on the day that the DOW tanked, McCain made his blunder. With that, Obama took control.

And he dunked. And he dunked. And he threw down tomahawk after tomahawk after filthy dunk on McCain. Pretty soon, when McCain's team looked up at the scoreboard, things were looking very ugly.

So he called a time-out. Now, there are two types of timeouts. The first is merely to stop the bleeding, and refocus your team on the game at hand. But the second type is far more consequential to the outcome of a game.

Unlike what Left Wing Jumper posted below, I think McCain's time-out has totally deflated Obama's momentum. It shifted the focus from the economy as a whole to the economic bail-out of this bill. By doing what he did, he forced Obama to become part of the solution in Washington. Why is that bad for Obama?

Because what I expect to happen is that the Congress and the President will come up with some bi-partisan bill. It will meet the congressional demands, but it will be pricey. Somewhere between $700 Billion and $2 trillion. And tax-paying Americans are going to be on the hook for it.

I believe McCain is setting up a scenario in which he will vote against the bill, then spend the next five weeks campaigning on a platform of saving every American close to $50,000. He will rally fiscal conservatives and moderate democrats to his side and, most importantly, distance himself from both President Bush and Barack Obama.

See the second type of time-out is where you draw up plays. I am pretty sure Mr. McCain's staff has a white board, a dry erase maker, and a plan.



[For those of you sports fans who have no idea what a momentum dunk looks like: click here]