The Correct Analogy for the 2024 Election

Well that just happened. I have a number of thoughts on this but until I get time to put them down in detail here's a summery of what I think.

However one thing I did want to point out is that people are missing the correct analogy when it comes to what happened this cycle. Nate Silver recently made a typically error by using a Homer Simpson analogy which is obviously totally off. Harris and Biden are pretty different people and switching the candidate out was clearly the correct move, even if the Democrats still didn't win.

It bears repeating, but no matter how many times media people claim otherwise one can run a good campaign, even a perfect one, and still lose an election.

As I see if Democrats had kept Biden they probably would have ended with something like a 1980 style blow out in the Electoral College and with the GOP winning say 7-10 Senate seats and a 20+ majority in the House. Instead the candidate switch and Harris's pretty good campaign resulted in a close election with much smaller loses in Congress and state governments. That's a really big difference!

The fact is there are important difference between a comfortably large House majority and one where deaths and retirements might put the chamber in play between now and 2026. Likewise any single Senator can have real influence and the smaller the GOP majority the harder it is to confirm awful people like Matt Gaetz.

The correct 2024 analogy we are all looking for was from Oliver Stone's crazy but great football movie Any Given Sunday. The film features over-the-hill coach Tony D'Mato (Al Pacino) trying to guide the once great Miami Sharks back to glory. His plans all fall apart at the beginning of the film when his star but aging QB Jack "Cap" Rooney (that's Biden) is injured and has to be replaced by the young questionable talent Willie Beaman (that's Harris).

It's a pretty standard sports drama from then onward. Willie turns out to be better than anyone expected, he just needed someone to show him how to believe in himself you see, or at least not to act like a jackass all the time and the Sharks look like they might be able to win the Superbowl, sorry Pantheon Cup. I'd add that because of it's great ensemble cast, well written subplots, and interesting things to say about the myth and business of sports is actually a pretty good film, even if Oliver Stone made some odd choices (if you know you know).

But this isn't a standard Hollywood movie, it's an Oliver Stone film, so it ends with the "big game" being the league championship with Harris, sorry, Willie being able to squeak out a win in the final seconds.

The Super Bowl occurs off screen and in the final scene as the credits run we learn the Sharks lost. It was not to be.

To me that's basically what happened. Harris improbably became the nominee and then came agonizingly close to winning but alas didn't. The norm media people are socialized into is to always portray the losing presidential campaign is incompetent and run by idiots. But in this case it's not true, it was a pretty good campaign! Just not good enough to overcome the same headwinds that have sunken every other democratic government with an election this year other than Luxembourg.

Had Coach D'Mato cut Captain Jack earlier could they have won? Maybe, but like in sports it's just hard to know for sure. Maybe Willie would have done worse, maybe the real problem was choices made long ago as D'Mato points out to the owner that "Maybe if I had gotten the linemen I wanted maybe our quarterback would still be walking!" We'll just never know, but the idea Harris was "bad at politics" is clearly wrong.

One can run a good campaign, even a perfect one, and still lose an election.