Can it be baseball if Obama, Clinton and McCain all face strike three? (Page 2 of 2)

McCain’s Strike Three could similarly lie beyond his control. As a rapidly aging Republican who’s embraced right wing evangelicals as well as the Bush economy and the War in Iraq, his future's twisting in the winds. Events could blow by with such heat they’d render him unelectable. Right now the war in Iraq is ugly and the U.S. economy appears to be collapsing.

Yes, Lucky Ticket Holder, you correctly observe that my metaphor has reached the breaking point. All three candidates cannot strike out! Politics, it turns out, resembles Big Brother or Survivor more than baseball. Strange alliances, madcap strategies and cold calculations come into play.

Take Clinton. She’s playing the only game that offers her a chance. It’s called Destroy Obama. Only by painting him as unelectable can she become the Democratic nominee. Her allies are many: those tapes of Rev. Wright, the ongoing Rezko trial, Super Delegates, a pliable media, plus a well-spring of goodwill many feel for the Clintons.

Still, nostalgia for the Clintons is running low. As an old friend put it, Bill Clinton didn’t shoot the Democratic Party in the foot when he foolishly opened himself to an unjust impeachment. No, he shot it in the head. I wouldn’t go that far, but it appears at times that Sen. Clinton’s bent on doing just that. Her “kitchen sink” strategy could sink the party. Plenty of voters I know of a certain age and gender say they’d vote for McCain before they would Obama. And how many Obama supporters will vote for Clinton if they feel she’s stealing their Field of Dreams?

For his part, McCain is positioning himself beautifully to attract any and all defectors. Last week I watched him deliver a speech on foreign policy, parts of which could’ve been written by Clinton or Obama. McCain declared that we must restore our nation’s reputation. We must support norms of international behavior. We must build down our nuclear arsenal in a way that honors the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. We must unite to defeat global over-heating and find alternative energy sources. We must step up efforts to fight poverty and AIDS.
Could McCain win my vote? Absolutely. I couldn’t have said that a month ago. I hasten to add, it’s not likely. I could still bring myself to vote for Clinton.

I'm for Obama, however. I believe the presidency is his to lose. As my friend Joe Gallagher suggested in an e-mail last week, “Obama isn't Casey, at least not the one who struck out. He’s The Natural.” Remember the old Robert Redford movie? Despite obvious differences, there’s some truth hovering around the edges of that comparison. And if you’ll pardon one more swing with a cracked metaphor, here’s hoping that some way, some how, Obama summons the strength, intelligence and charisma to knock out the stadium lights.