Comments on: The Sports Talk Radio Election

By: Murray Perrine

Murray Perrine — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:48:46 +0000

Dead-bang bulls-eye analysis. Well played.

By: matthew lyons

matthew lyons — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:52:44 +0000

Great write up, and hilarious (and accurate) add-on by Nate.

By: Rick Moody

Rick Moody — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:58:52 +0000

Hey Steve, I really like the piece, and I think there’s a lot of truth in it, but I don’t think A FAN’S NOTES is a novel. I think it falls almost exactly between the cracks, as regards genre.

All my best, and you owe me a copy of your pamphlet-y thing, you motherfucker.

By: steve almond

steve almond — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:10:19 +0000

i’m kind of in love with nate. his post is basically what i was trying to say, distilled.

By: Nate

Nate — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:49:06 +0000

I supported, donated to and ultimately voted for Obama in what I considered the proudest moment I could have in a voting booth. There was no way the man was going to live up to the lofty hype we had all created, and happily bought in to. However, I never thought the man, and the party, would turn into such a gaggle of pussy footing bitches.
I couldn’t agree more that “This is all very sad. The leader of a mature democracy shouldn’t have to think or behave like this.” Yet having just lived through 8 years of the shoe being on the other foot, how else is one of the biggest clusterfucks in American history supposed to be cleaned up?
The Dems had their super majority and they pissed it away instead of telling the Right to zip it because the adults were talking. I hope this “surprising” win doesn’t lead to a scaling back of the goals of the adminstration, like the pundits are suggesting, I hope it’s taken like the opposing pitcher hitting your star slugger. They can either tuck their tails and limp back to the dugout or channel their inner Don Drysedale and take out three of the other cocksuckers. The game is clearly on and we’re about to see whose house it really is.

By: Elisabeth

Elisabeth — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:58:59 +0000

I’ve been in LA over 20 years, but I can’t wash the Massachusetts out of my system. Steve is right. Anyone who’s ever driven in MA or had a drink in nearly any bar in MA, would understand the sports analogy. The state is small, usually broke and suffers an entrenched infrastructure in Boston. The weather is also unpredictable and often atrocious. It makes for a certain kind of myopia in its residents.

The bigger picture of course, is that the Democrats have no clue how to function like Republicans and march in lock step on the important issues. They are grossly out of touch with their base, which used to be made up of working class, social moderates, who didn’t trust big business. They’ve fooled themselves into believing that we desire nuance and subtlety,
which is a joke in the age of “reality” programming.

I agree with Jane that a sports metaphor is not necessarily a bad thing. Reaching out to people with language they feel comfortable with is populism and for better, or worse, it is the game many voters are listening to now. Personally, I would like to see President Obama pull a Cheney and tersely tell his critics to go fuck themselves. I have a feeling that if he starts to swing the big bat, more seats would be filled in the stadium.

By: steve almond

steve almond — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:00:49 +0000

hey ben. i like sports. i listen to STR. and i know defensive insecure bullshit when i hear it. howzabout you stop driving down the lane of your own rhetorical genius and focus on what you’re reading.

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:11:28 +0000

Back in 2005, when Rep. John Murtha called for withdrawal from Iraq and was attacked by Dick Cheney, Murtha appeared on a political talk show and said, “Cheney’s a friend of mine, but he’s wrong.” I never forgot this comment for its simplicity and directness. Democrats need to be more direct and to make more of an effort to connect with blue-collar voters, and if that means some occasional sports metaphors, that’s not automatically a bad thing.

By the way, as a fan of both basketball and the language, I have to point out that one of the most overused phrases in news coverage – “slam dunk” – shows absolutely no understanding of the game. A slam dunk looks simple, but it isn’t–and if you miss it, you look really, really bad. In that sense, you could certainly apply it to Martha Coakley’s campaign.

By: Brian Spears

Brian Spears — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:50:26 +0000

Ben, if that’s all you take away from this article, well, then you tell us a lot about yourself and your reading ability. What Steve is talking about is the idea that the horse race coverage that the press provides helps create the sports talk radio feel that comes to pervade our political discourse. Ideas don’t matter when the substance of an election is about who wins and who loses, who can take it to the hole and who’s going to get swatted, instead of which candidate is interested in the long term problems this country and the state he or she represents currently face.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:25:07 +0000

Steve,

This seems almost stereotypically elitist to me. People who like sports=dumb, Democrats=smart.

Is that really your stance? I know a lot of intelligent people who like sports. Honestly, it sounds like your jumper sucked and you got swatted every time you drove the lane in high school. A better response than “Well, people who listen to sports talk radio are retards” would probably be, “It’s not that surprising that a state that elected a Republican Mormon governor would also elect a Republican senator.”