The Election is Like College Sports

With the College Basketball tournament in full motion, and reading all of the results from the past four days, I got to thinking about the past three election seasons. In a way, these election seasons are like a mix of both the College basketball and the College Football Postseason. Why do I also mention College Football?

Simply put, the past two presidential elections are like the College Football postseason in that the establishment (on both the Republican and Democrat sides) have forced their candidate on us, just like our two choices in the form of #1 vs. #2 in the insipid Bowl Championship Series standings.

Now while the past two presidential elections have our candidates already named for us, Congressional elections (as well as the Democrat Presidential Primary in 2008 and the Republican Presidential Primary now) are like the NCAA College Basketball Tournament in that just as the 68 (current) teams play to see who will be the National College Basketball Champion, WE THE PEOPLE vote for who we want as a nominee. Sometimes we see upsets (like mid-major Butler University making it to the Final Four the past couple of years only to lose in the National Championship game) and sometimes we see the favorites survive and win (like #1 seed Duke University in 2010). We also see buzzer-beater shots making people heroes (like Christian Laettner’s buzzer beater as well as others in the following video) and also shots making people goats (like Gordon Hayward missing the final second shot in the 2010 National Championship Game vs. Duke)

This year’s Republican Presidential Primary has seen many people as front runners (Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney) and we have also seen many gaffes (like Perry’s oops comment during a debate)

However, one constant has remained true throughout this primary. That is WE THE PEOPLE are deciding, and we will continue to decide the nominee, whether said nominee gets 1,144 delegates between now and June 26 (the last primary) or by way of a brokered (or contested) convention the week of August 27-30 at the Republican National Convention.

If you are an American and have not voted as of yet (in the states and territories that have primaries and caucii coming up) please exercise your privilege (Note: it is not a right to vote, as there is no right to vote in a presidential election, but that is for another show) to vote for whoever your candidate may be. Will your candidate be a Butler, or will your candidate be a Duke?