Note: You do not have to like or understand football to read this. Your humble diarist is a casual fan.
Note 2: Yes I am being a bit cheeky. But just a bit.
As of this morning, the Patriots are 3-0 on the season. Last night they rolled all over the Houston Texans, one of the best teams in the league, and they did it with a third-string rookie quarterback. He played well, and had one great run, and threw no interceptions. But beyond that he did nothing special. They adjusted the game plan to put them in a position to win.
Their opening game was against Arizona, another good team, and it was in Arizona. They won.
They just win. It’s almost boring how much they win.
Sure, they get some luck – they picked up a tight end in the fourth round because nobody wanted to take a chance on him. He turned out to be great (and apparently a murderer … but I digress). Their other tight end, famously goofy Rob Gronkowski, is one of the best ever; he scored more touchdowns, more quickly, than any tight end in history. Bob Ryan once pointed out that he hopes people aren’t missing that (we aren’t).
But they get bad luck too. As you know Tom Brady is serving a four-game suspension over something that wouldn’t convince a jury of kangaroos. They also lost two draft picks over Deflategate, not to mention the draft pick they lost over Spygate (in which they almost certainly were guilty; it defies logic to assume they had a videographer present that Belichick didn’t know about).
Like all of us, they have had ups and downs. But they usually just win. And some of us are old enough to remember when they just lost (or just finished 8-8).
So … politics. Of course politics isn’t football (or any other game). There are subtleties, nuances, shifting winds. But like we always say, the choice couldn’t be clearer. Broadening that to the entire party, the direction couldn’t be clearer. In that sense, the metaphor fits.
We remember Ted Kennedy fondly because he always moved in the right direction. He’d work with Republicans on their bills to make them better, or at least less bad. He’d negotiate, he’d befriend people on the other side, he enjoyed the work, and he pushed and pushed (and they respected him for that). We have yet to recover from his loss.
Who’s doing that now? Maybe someone, I don’t know. But it still feels like we compromise too much. We would have decided to settle for two wins. The Patriots already have three, and a good shot at four.
One more thing: we always hear, especially at election crunch time, that we have to accept whatever flaws and limitations present themselves, because the alternative is worse. True, but it’s a lot easier to accept those limitations when we know we’re working against them. Case in point: this week our vice presidential nominee declined to sign a Senate petition calling for a public option (not single payer, a public option). What Democrat is against that? I don’t mean to single Kaine out … but I just did. I hope he shows more fighting spirit if he becomes VP.
Perfection is unattainable. But refusing to settle for defeat is attainable. The Patriots (and Ted Kennedy) prove that.
jconway says
Aptly timed and astutely argued commentary.
Also I look at it as 3-0 for the Pats and 0-3 for Roger!
JimC says
n/t
Christopher says
…I thought by Patriots you meant the Revolutionary generation.
sabutai says
Too often Democrats expect to win by pointing at the opposition and saying “we’re not as bad as them”. This would be like Coach Belichick saying “the Dolphins are horrible, so just be better”. No, he comes up with a game plan, executes it, and adjusts it as needed. He doesn’t expect the other team to defeat itself.
We need less “at least we’re not THEM” and more “this is who WE are”.
Pablo says
Ortiz for Governor, Belichick for MA Democratic State Party Chair.
sabutai says
Just for the press conferences alone.
ryepower12 says
Because the GOP won’t let us.
Look how much the dems have away for the ACA… and got not a single gop vote in the house for it. The GOP earned its Party of No nickname for a reason.
2. We had a Belichek, but John Walsh retired. We need a new John Walsh.
jconway says
I don’t recall too many successes, he and Deval even endorsed Wilkerson over Chang-Diaz. And our conservative opposition in this state is largely part of the same Democratic Party machinery the progressives are in. Clearly the voting members of the convention are left of center, as are most of the volunteer groups, but something is broken when the majority of the legislators are not.
And no, my solution to the extent we had the resources to implement it, didn’t work out either, but only 2 primary challengers won and only 22 incumbents out of 120 faced primary opposition this year. Nora Harrington had the money and manpower to go the distance, and still fell short to a decidedly regressive Democrat. So we can’t even say the Senate is our salvation. I guess continuing the slow process and focusing on issues (Progressive Income Tax in 2018) rather than candidates (who gets to lose to Baker?) is the way to go.
Christopher says
The party chair really shouldn’t be endorsing in a contested primary. Also as I recall Wilkerson had plenty of faults, including legal and ethical issues, but I don’t think not being progressive was one of them. Deval I think engaged in incumbent protection for its own sake. It’s really not the chair’s job to make sure progressives are elected per se unless if he goes recruiting in races where there might otherwise not be a Dem I think adherence to the platform (which tends to trend progressive) would be an appropriate criterion.
ryepower12 says
But John Walsh showed a remarkable capacity to pull the party together and beat the general election odds.
It’s up to progressives to elect progressives through other means beyond the official state party apparatus. As a progressive, I’m comfortable with that.
jconway says
That’s kind of my point. There needs to be a group, I’m not sure if PM
has the capacity but I’m rooting for it, that organizes for these primaries. Our Revolution was cited nationally for its work electing Mike Connolly and re-electing Par Jehlen. Both difficult races in easy districts.
The Tea Party and its affiliates didn’t bother taking over the RNC, they just won enough primaries to make the RNC impotent in the face of their strength. We deplore their ideology, but it may be time to adopt their tactics. They also focus on state houses first as the locus point of where to practice their ideas. Kansas almost entirely privatized public education, meanwhile our legislature just did the hard work of naming a bridge after Big Papi.
jconway says
Harold Meyerson cites the Jehlen and Connolly races, along with work the WFP and unions are doing, to drive these kinds of primaries. I think unions can be a critical component as well, especially since the Sanders movement is about economic progress and the social issues are largely ‘settled’ in this state.