January 31, 2011--Obama's SportsTalk

Get used to it, like it or not, for the next two years, until the 2012 election, Barack Obama will be pulling out all sorts of sports metaphors.

His State of the Union last week was just the beginning. The theme was "Winning the Future." He used that phrase at least half-a-dozen times. And then the next day, in Wisconsin, the home of the Super-Bowl-bound Green Bay Packers, he evoked the ghost of their legendary coach, Vince Lombardi.

He said:

We've got to up our game, we're going to need to go all in, we're going to need to get serious about winning the future." And then, without directly naming Lombardi, Obama said the Packers coach asserted "there is no room for second place. There's only room in my game for first place. That's the kind of determination to win that America needs right now.

Lombardi actually said:

Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that's first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.

I am eager to see if Obama digs further into the implications of the rest of the coach's mantra, which is not just about winning but doing things right. Applied to what faces us in the world--in our competition with China and the aspirations of people in the wider world, Muslim peoples right now front and center--we have our work cut out for us.

But by deploying an array of sports references Obama is doing more than challenging us. He is also revealing his reelection political strategy.

More than anything else he needs to reattract middle-aged, white independent voters. Folks who used to be referred to as Reagan Democrats. He needs to do things to appeal to them, to show that he understands and relates to them.

Reagan not only appealed to this constituency because they liked his spirit of optimism and his vision for America but also because they liked his style. Especially his Western, cowboy, movie star swagger.

Half the reason George W. Bush was elected and reelected was because he had some of that same appeal. Though from a Brahmin, New England family, and Yale and Harvard educated, he adopted a cowboy's bow-legged walk. I can only imagine how hard he worked to perfect it. But it worked. When asked who they'd prefer to have beer with, George Bush or Al Gore and then later John Kerry, most guys said Bush..

Bill Clinton too had his own version of the regular-guy touch. Also with an elite education, he could turn on the Bubba act, eat junk food, and we know what he did at night in various trailer parks. A lot of guys with six-packs in hand thought this was pretty cool.

Obama can't credibly do cowboy and if he tried to sneak around, even before the press caught up with him, Michelle would dump him.

But though he flops when trying to hang out and knock down some beers with regular guys, he can do sports. We've already seen him filling out March Madness basketball brackets and just the other day he made some predictions about who would wind up in the Super Bowl. And we know he plays three-on-three basketball almost every day.

As a result we now have Winning the Future and Vince Lombardi quotes. Stay tuned, there will be much more jock talk.

For example--

The best offense is the best defense. (Or is it the other way around?)

He hit that speech out of the park. (Post-State-of-the-Union spin.)

The ball's in your court. (When trying to get China to lean on North Korea.)

The gloves are off. (When taking a more forceful position with Iran.)

It's time for a full-court press. (For chasing after al qaeda.)

Who's carrying the ball on this one? (Hillary Clinton or Robert Gates?)

It'll be a slam-dunk. (Sorry, this one's from the Bush administration. When they invaded Iraq.)

I'm throwing my hat in the ring. (When Obama announces he's running for reelection.)

You get the point, right? You've had enough? Me too.