Man Bites Blog

Bill James has an article in Slate about a formula for determining when a college basketball game is over.

Of course, in James’s usual sport of baseball, no lead is “safe” because the number of runs a team can score is not constrained by the time remaining.

James draws some parallels to political campaigns, so I’ll stretch even futher.

Before the “safe” point, there is a point where the trailing team’s only path to victory involves fouling the opposing team every time they get the ball and hoping they miss their free throws.

This seems to be the phase of the game the Democratic nomination is in.  The only way for Hillary Clinton to win the nomination is to “foul” Obama by raising some issue, and hope that he misses the “free throws” by bungling his handling of the scandals.  Let’s call the strategy, “Hack-a-Barack.”  This is particularly crucial for Clinton, since her offensive game is somewhat limited; she doesn’t have the capability to pull off the political equivalent of draining a series of three-pointers.

In basketball, this phase of the game is often ugly and boring, to the point that coaches often abandon the strategy even if they have a theoretical chance of regaining the lead.

In this campaign, this is even more the case.  Presumably, if she loses, Clinton would like Obama to prevail in the general election if he wins the nomination, and the damage of her “fouls” could carry over into the general election. 

The downside of the fouling strategy is that the opposing team can effectively end the game by hitting its free throws.  Obama can do the same.  Here’s hoping he regains his stroke.

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