Texas Sports Teams and Democrats

  If you don’t like Democrats or Texas sport teams, this has been a banner couple of weeks. I only recently discovered my dislike of all things relating to Texas sports teams, when I was abused on facebook by a Texas Rangers fan. Since then I’ve gotten to watch the Texas Rangers lose the World Series in front of their cheering Texas fans and the mighty Texas Longhorns lose at home to long time punching bag schools Iowa State and Baylor. I know that Baylor University is in Texas, but not many people identify the Baylor Bears with Texas and besides, Texas University probably pays their players more than the coaching staffs at Iowa State and Baylor combined. But it got even better when the New York football Giants not only beat the Dallas Cowboys in their billion dollar stadium, they broke Dallas quarterback Tony Romo’s collarbone in the process. The Cowboys then proceeded to lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars at home this past Sunday to secure the second worst record in the entire National Football League. As a Giants fan, I’ve always hated the Cowboys but used to respect their machine like efficiency under Tom Landry in the 70’s and the brilliant and gutsy running of Emmitt Smith in the 90’s. Since then, except for the few years when ex-Giant coach Bill Parcells assembled a real team, they have been a laughing stock and few things amuse me more that watching Cowboy owner and GM Jerry Jones prance, grimace, and groan on the sidelines or his luxury box while his team of high priced celebrity players lose yet another game. The only silver lining in the Cowboys dark cloud is that they will probably win some games with their backup quarterback and realize that Tony Romo is not someone who can lead a team to a championship. He might have grown into that if Parcells had stayed on, but once he left Romo became a tabloid superstar without earning it on the field of play. In any event, it has been a fun couple of weeks to be a Texas un-fan.

  The Democrats took it on the chin in the election this week, losing control of the House of Representatives and many state Legislatures. In 2008, the Democrats were able to use the rampant dissatisfaction with President W. Bush to gain the Presidency and huge majorities in Congress, but 2 years later, they found themselves blamed for many of the same problems.

  I think the big winner of these elections is President Obama. Without a Democratic majority in Congress, he won’t be pressured by his base to follow a too-liberal agenda and now he can throw some of the blame for the nation’s problems on the same Republican shoulders that have just claimed power. Instead of being skewered for not doing enough to advance the cause of gay rights or illegal immigrants or abortion or ... no matter what he actually accomplishes, he will now get credit for any small thing that does manage to get done. Just as voters forgot how much they wanted Democrats to be in charge in 2006 and 2008, they forgot how hated the Republicans were in those years, but they will soon remember. Also, now that Obama has been seemingly weakened, there will be Republicans crawling out of the woodwork to try to gain the nomination to run against him for President in 2012. They will be bashing each other so much that whoever does get the nomination will either be severely weakened by partisan attacks or a fringe candidate with a small energetic base that won’t be able to gain the votes of the middle-of-the road majority. The currents odds on Obama’s reelection is 4/5 (bet 5 to win 9). If I can ever get to Las Vegas, I’ll make the bet in a heartbeat. It is an even surer thing than it was a week ago.