Today’s Best Football Analogy to Politics: Foley Affair Like an Interception Returned For a Touchdown

We might disagree with their positions, but today’s Evans-Novak Political Report does a great job of summing up where we stand in football terms. He notes that the Foley scandal has reversed the improvements Republicans made in the polls last month:

It must be emphasized that a buildup of Republican momentum last month was not just a positive sign for the GOP, but a necessary trend for them to maintain control of the House — and even the Senate. Republicans were counting on a huge fourth quarter comeback that included three unanswered touchdowns, in order to narrowly win the game in the final seconds.

The Foley Affair is like an interception returned for a touchdown on the second drive of that comeback. Team GOP now finds itself three scores behind all over again, this time with only 12 minutes to go. The fans are demoralized. Victory (which this year would simply be to keep both houses of Congress) seems like an almost impossible feat at this point, even if the most loyal fans refuse to give up.

Novak partially blames the media coverage (standard conservative line for virtually anything) but does admit that Republican leaders handled this poorly. Recognizing that a lot can still change, Novak sees the Democrats as picking up enough House seats to take control but currently predicts a Democratic pick up of only four in the Senate. He also predicts Democrats will pick up five Governor’s seats, and warns that the significance of this for the 2008 Presidential race is being overlooked.

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