Kevin Collins: Building fan support for the liberals

In the last few weeks, the Democratic presidential candidates debated in Arizona, Bob Graham dropped out of the race, Wesley Clark's campaign manager resigned and the third quarter fundraising numbers were announced. You may not have noticed. After all, the baseball game was on.

Riding the elevator recently, my apartment's maintenance guy observed out loud, "If our country concentrated half as much on politics as they do sports, the government wouldn't get away with half the fuckin' things they do."

I'm the type of guy who cares more about poll numbers than box scores, so I can't fully understand the phenomenon, but the man has a point. America has an obsession for professional sports that politics cannot equal.

Coming from Wisconsin as I do, where bare-chested Packers fans brave the frozen tundra with little more between them and the elements than foam-rubber cheeseheads, coats of green and gold paint and a bottle of beer (OK, perhaps several bottles of beer), it is hard to argue against the motivational and organizational power of professional sports. After all, when was the last time you saw body paint at the Democratic National Convention?

Look at Rush Limbaugh. His attempts to put politics in front of football got him swiftly booted off ESPN. OK, so he technically "resigned," but you get my point. Frankly, if ABC wanted to mix sports and politics, they did it backwards. They'd be far better off having Al Michaels and John Madden giving play-by-play and color commentary at presidential debates. Perhaps then people might actually watch.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that one can't follow both sports and politics. The vast history of past presidential candidates includes a former Buffalo Bill (Jack Kemp) and New York Knick (Bill Bradley). This year's crop includes the former owner of the Texas Rangers and a former high school hockey coach from Vermont.

Similarly, elections would not be compared to horse races and Reagan would not have asked George H.W. Bush to "Win one for the Gipper" if the worlds of sports and politics were mutually and completely removed. Just to the contrary, politicians and political writers often invoke sports metaphors (you may even find a few in this column).

How often, though, does the reverse happen? Rush Limbaugh was the exception to the rule, and the fact that sports are discussed in all contexts show that it matters more to Americans than politics does.

If in fact sports matter more to us than politics, why is that the case? One might argue that average Americans cannot relate to political elites, whereas sports are a Great Equalizer, allowing common men (I'd say "and women," but who do you know that watches the WNBA?) to rise to greatness. But, a popular disdain for the influence of wealth and power has kept neither the Yankees nor the Republicans from garnering a loyal following.

And while the Democrats don't quite have the same losing record as the Red Sox or the Cubs (thank goodness), we surely are the underdogs. In the last fundraising quarter, President Bush's team brought in nearly $50 million, leaving them with $70 million in the bank. To put that in perspective, the best performing Democrat brought in just under $15 million, and to put it bluntly, Bush is kicking the Democrats' collective ass.

Yet, as underdogs, Democrats do not maintain the popular support that the Cubs and Sox do, even as losing teams. Sure, voters come out on election day, but the Democrats need a financial as well as electoral base to compete. Republicans have consistently done better at bringing in small donations, and while new Democratic initiatives, like Howard Dean's online efforts that helped bring make his quarter three haul a $14.8 million windfall, are beginning to change this trend, at least through this campaign season, the Republicans will continue to beat the Democrats.

So how does one turn around a losing team? Well, a new roster of players wouldn't hurt. John Kerry's stentorian speeches and Joe Lieberman's sleep-inducing monologues don't help Democrats connect with the average sports fan. While Bob Graham is sponsoring a racecar, he's now out of the race.

More than NASCAR sponsorships, however, the Democrats need better fan support, which means that the Democrats need to make the people care about politics again -- make them care more, or at least as much, as they clearly do about sports. To some, that may seem to be a reasonable goal, as the fate of our economy and national security is decided in the political arena, not on a baseball diamond.

But still, asking average Americans to switch channels from ESPN to C-SPAN is asking a lot, and reinvigorating our democratic process is a long, hard task. Then again, if the Cubs can win the pennant, anything is possible.

Kevin Collins is a College sophomore from Milwaukee, Wis.

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