Predictions before the “Big Game”; Barack Obama or John McCain?

A week before Super Bowl XLI, coming home from a party at my friend’s house, he turned to me and asked who I thought would win the upcoming game. I simply turned to him and said “The Indianapolis Colts”, something which he and the others in the car adamantly disagreed with. You turned on Sports TV and you saw people predicting a blowout by the Chicago Bears, though the Colts were the favourites to win, even Hollywood celebrities were endorsing The Bears, buying up tickets for their friends, sporting popular “Bears Wear” to the paparazzi, but I still wasn’t going to back away from what I had said before.

I personally didn’t believe Bears’ Quarterback Rex Grossman had it in him to lead his team to victory. Sure he was young, he threw a few touchdowns, the city of Chicago was singing his praises, but I had been watching this season from the first kick off in September and I didn’t see the team leader needed to win the Super Bowl. Instead, I saw a young and cocky quarterback, assured that his team’s defensive line would bail him out of every situation he got them into. He wasn’t Dan Marino, he wasn’t Brett Farve, and he definitely wasn’t Troy Aikman, he was a player who simply got lucky enough to make it to the “Big Game”. Sure I was hoping for the Dallas Cowboys to win, but a poorly handled field goal ended their season early, and I was forced to pick a team to support, that or stop watching my favourite sport.

Peyton Manning was, to me at least, a seasoned player. Entering the NFL in 1998, he was a little “green”, might not have won the title before, but he had been in the league for eight years, breaking a variety of records and becoming a regular at the All Star games. Sure the Colt’s defense wasn’t the greatest in the league, especially not when compared to the Bears, but their offense was just as strong, if not stronger than Chicago’s. Manning himself preferred to pass the ball rather than run it, going against the strength of the Bears, and even though Chicago ranked number two in the league on points per game, I knew Grossman was an “on or off” quarterback. Hockey fans know what an “on or off” player is, especially when talking about goalies, either they are on their game, or the team loses. This is what happened…

First quarter, the Bears came out strong, scoring two touchdowns to the right away, one off the opening kick off, another going to Muhsin Muhammad, but this would be it. There next and last score was a field goal in the third quarter, points which came too late as the Colts were leading them by a modest margin, adding to that lead with a final touchdown in the fourth quarter. The story was broken down by time or possession and first downs. The Colts had the ball for almost twice as much time as the Bears (38 to 22 minutes), marching down the field for a total of 430 yards gained compared to the Chicago’s 265. While the Bears only had two more turn overs (5) compared to the Colts (3), Indianapolis had more than double the amount of first downs than did Chicago (24 to 11). Grossman couldn’t put the plays together to get his team more downs, and this forced the Bears to punt numerous times in the game. No one believed me, but I could tell Grossman wasn’t the right man for the “Big Game” after watching him scrape by throughout the season.

This is what I see now looking at the presidential election this year. Just like Peyton Manning and the Colts, the Press has written off John McCain and the Republicans. This isn’t a surprise, these same reporters and pundits wrote him off in the primaries, especially when compared to Republicans like Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani, but the “Maverick” won hands down. Ignoring his performance in the nomination race, the MSM has declared Barack Obama the winner since he was placed on the ticket. The national polls, skewed by inaccurate numbers of new voters registered (ACORN reported a million new voters, they only actually handed in 500,000, but most of those are fake), overly optimistic predictions on young voter turnout (no matter what the Democrats do, most will still not vote), assuming that so many Democrats will vote for Barack Obama (they forget about the Carter-Reagan election, as well as groups like PUMA), etc refuse to report anything significant, instead providing a confusing barrage of seudo-predictions which were proven wrong during the Democratic primaries (New Hampshire anyone?). Call it a “gut feeling”, I just don’t see Obama and Biden winning this election.

Well, to be honest, it is little more than that. Returning to my football metaphor, we have seen Barack fumble more than a few footballs and throw too many interceptions. Remember “Bittergate”? Instead of dropping on the ground to cover the “pigskin” after that fumble, he stands there discussing how he was right about his comments, giving Team McCain the ball with good field position to score political points. How about attacking Sarah Palin’s lack of experience? That “Hail Mary” pass was intercepted the instant people realized the person throwing the ball lacked anything that even resembled on the job training. It isn’t just Barack though, Joe Biden has cost his team major points thanks to his “safeties”, the most recent one being his comment on the coming international crisis after Obama gets elected. Talk about blowing the lead, if not the game. If I was their coach, I would bench these two for the rest of the season and discuss with the general manager about trading them away.

Why hasn’t the media, the political referee called any “penalties” on the Obama/Biden campaign? After all, it was definitely “unsportsman-like conduct” when they attacked Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, if not “roughing the passer” for way they came after John McCain for picking Sarah Palin as a running mate. Well, you see, they have been playing for the other team…

All in all, I don’t think their bias matters anymore. I doubt Pennsylvania will vote for Barack Obama, not after the browbeating him and John Murtha have been giving the voters there this election. I don’t think calling people bitter racists and rednecks is a great way to get their votes. Also, don’t expect Florida to vote for the Democrats. The instant they heard of his friend Rashid Khalidi, former PLO mouth-piece, a significant number of Jewish voters turned Republican supporters. Also, the instant the Cubans could link Obama to socialism, the same form of government they ran away from, he lost their vote as well. Ohio voters are disgusted with voter fraud, and with ACORN tied directly to Barack, don’t expect that state to go Democrat this time around either. Gains in Virginia have been overstated by the MSM and the Obama/Biden campaign, something anyone with half-a-brain should have realized once these pollsters were reporting that Montana and Arizona, two of the most Republican states in the Union, were competitive battlegrounds for a liberal Democrat. Might as well have said Rush Limbaugh was endorsing Marxism with that kind of partisan bullshit…

We haven’t even seen the damage Barack’s coal comments will do in these swing states, but I can sure tell you it won’t be pretty. Expect a child-like tantrum when Obama realizes he lost the White House… A tantrum rivaled only by the city of Chicago’s reaction to the Bears loss to the Colts two years ago…

UPDATE: HillBuzz has a story on Cuban support for McCain. What was I just saying about their vote? Expect to see that state in McCain’s win column tonight…