Respect Authority

Rachel Maddow, of the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, contextualized the election’s final stretch yesterday with, unsurprisingly, a football metaphor. We get it Rachel, you were the first openly gay Rhodes scholar. Stop shoving our tongues in it.

But for all you Joe Six Packs, Plumbers and G.I.s out there, the football metaphor should help you understand why your pal is losing and help you come to grips with the looming onslaught of socialism.

Understanding the general election as a competition for territory, Maddow deftly plots the contest on a football field. Using D.C. and Utah, the widest margins of victory in the 2004 election, as the ten-yard lines and the swing states as the fifty, Maddow illustrates that most of the game is being played over in McCain territory — which means Obama is winning.

She continues that even if Obama doesn’t win all the red states in play or makes a “touchdown”, he’s still in field goal range. Point is, if this was a real football game, with real money on it, your bookie would be paying out already.

While the comparison is brilliant, I can’t help but wonder how this analysis is substantially independent from the polls she claims aren’t entirely reliable. Even if Obama’s playing on the 30 and flirting with 15 (I have no idea if that’s really football speak, help me lesbians), isn’t he pursuing a strategy built on the assumption that he’s totally safe in the states that are on the “50 yard line”? Where do those assumptions come from? Polls, right? Video after the jump.