The way to understand the Democratic field, as with most things, I find, is to think more about Duck football.
Just as the Democrats need a solid candidate to take back the beleaguered White House, the Ducks need a solid quarterback to take command of the retuned spread offense and erase the nasty memories of 2006. Conveniently, the major candidates in each campaign find themselves with a rough equivalent on the other side that tells us something about the nature of both races.
Who’s who, then?
Hillary is Dennis Dixon: experienced, capable, occasionally inspiring, sometimes tone-deaf and boneheaded. Her anoitment in the highest role has long been expected, but misfires along the way have assembled a legion of skeptics and outright detractors, and it is no longer clear among the faithful that she deserves a shot at the top job. The Iraq vote is, in a manner of speaking, the bowl game.
John Edwards is Brady Leaf (unless Bill Richardson is), the solidly decent, archetypal candidate who in a down year would make a perfectly acceptable choice, but whose limited upside makes him an also-ran in this contest. If he’s playing, the fans are unhappy, not because he is terrible, but because that means the “better” candidates have self-destructed.
Obama is, of course, Nic Costa, the high school All-American with the rocket arm, the A+ scouting reports, the stunningly good performances in mop-up duty and the Spring Game, and the huge attraction in the eyes of summertime fans of not having made a single mistake on the field yet. He may be the next Dan Fouts or Chris Miller, or even Brett Favre. He may play on Sundays until our kids are grown. Or he may throw his first, long-awaited pass into the hands of a cornerback, the way the freshman Kellen Clemens did, and earn detractors of his own. Only time will tell, but for now he is the savior incarnate, glorified not despite his being unknown but because of it.
So who is Al Gore, you ask? Well, there is no Al Gore on the Ducks right now, which is unfortunate, though Clemens in his senior year would not have been a far-off comparison. But no, in the context of this year’s race, Gore is the complete wild card: he is Joey Harrington, who conquered the NCAA and went on to bigger things, was abused and discarded, and now suddenly may find his way back home, rediscovering a lost year of eligibility (use your imagination) and leading the team that is properly his for as long as he will have it.
Times have changed, and people too, but there is no dispelling the idea that if Gore wins and we bring back the ugly spruce uniforms and buy a big enough billboard to hang on Times Square, things will probably work out fine.
Who have I forgotten, sitting at the end of the bench? Kucinich? Naw, he’s not a quarterback at all, just the OSPIRG president and head of the debate team, last seen picketing outside of Autzen for better humanities funding, a higher student-athlete graduation rate, and a crackdown on underage drinking in the parking lot.
And Joe Lieberman? Easy. He’s Johnny DuRocher.
