Obama and Fantasy Football, or What Obama Has in Common with FiveThirtyEight.com

Barack Obama is a recognized sports fan. We know about his basketball, and then there was this recent article about Obama's fantasy football team, written by Rick Reilly.  The article itself, like most of Reilly's stuff, was really about Reilly--after all the column is called the Life of Reilly--but it also revealed another heretofore unseen aspect of Obama's personality. 

The article revealed directly a least one part of Obama that only gets displayed indirectly most of the time--his inherent American masculinity. In this case, however, it's a particular kind of masculinity, the sports geek; his knowledge of fantasy football makes him part the growing legion of American men who love both sports and numbers.  Combine this with Obama's relationship with basketball, his appearance on the cover of Men's Health, his smoking habits, his hiring of a former sports player and academic as an aide, (not to mention his poker playing) and you have a man who can move in many different circles of masculinity, seemingly all very easily. 

But back to fantasy football. It's a sport where people pretend to own teams; they draft players, often pretend to pay them, and then compete against other teams. It's becoming more and more popular, with almost every sports website sponsoring a game. There is also fantasy baseball, basketball, golf, horse racing, hockey, and NASCAR. Being successful depends on a laser focus on numbers and predictions based on numbers. 

The link between masculinity and geekdom has only blossomed in the last few decades, with technology nerds becoming kings of the universe, and more specifically, to this post, geeky sports nerds being hired as the cool kids. That's why it's entirely appropriate that Nate Silver, the Baseball Prospectus writer, is this election's geek sensation; his FiveThirtyEight.com, a highly technical but eminently readable guide to election polling, is the go-to site for those of us who are geeked out on polls.*

That somehow Obama's connection to Fantasy Football makes him cooler is of some consequence to those of us who have had to explain to friends and romantic partners why we are spending hundreds of dollars and hours on a game with little chance of making any of that back. 

More importantly for this election, it probably means that Obama reads FiveThirtyEight.com and other geeky blogs; this year, politics is the new fantasy sport...

---J.S.

*I am glossing over the differences between geek and nerd. See Mental Floss's take.

Effect of Viral Emails

On the heels of yesterday's post, we provide a link to a story in The Swamp that, coincidentally or not, ran yesterday as well. It takes a look at the short and long term effects of anti-Obama email.

Another Racist Email

Nothing makes you a lightning rod for odd Obama emails like writing about Obama. The one in my inbox this morning was simple.

The subject line: "Plot to Kidnap Obama"

Upon opening the email, the message was nothing but this photo:

Time Magazine recently did a piece on how economics is going to trump race in this election. I believe they are right. According to Time, some white supremacist organizations are even supporting Obama out of sheer financial desperation. Still, it's fascinating how an underground subset of Americans seem to be working through both latent and overt racism because of Obama's success in the public and political sphere.

Almost everyone knows better than to publicly cite race as a motivating factor in voting. Regardless of personal views, public pressure will force folks to censor themselves. For example, virtually no one would wear a t-shirt of this joke. However, there does seem to be a need for some to process and vent through a more innocuous, more protected medium. I suppose the consolation here is that at least people know it is publicly unacceptable to be racist, and that at least that racism gets enacted as a joke rather than as action.

The only negative repercussions of Obama getting elected is the possibility of 4-8 more years of these emails . . .the optimistic reading though is that despite these emails, we should have 4-8 more years of an Obama presidency . . .

Election fatigue

Everybody I know is saying, "I can't wait for it to be over," suggesting an existential weariness that goes beyond simple tiredness.  I know I feel that way. So let's read this fear as a text.

Is it fatigue or memory? A Daily Kos diary recalls a post from 2004 in which he declared "We're already winning in Florida," linking to this image. I predicted a Kerry win myself. So some of this has to do with predictions gone wrong, not unlike my friend Miles's consistent memory about the Bartman Cubs, a series where he called me in the offending game and talked about pitching lineups between his Cubs and my Yankees. The World Series champions that year were the Marlins.

Is it fatigue or (a hundred different kinds of) fear? We have all been reading about the Bradley effect, but we want to believe in our country's ability to choose an African American president. Many of us are afraid that we won't take our first serious chance to do so. We remember Florida in 2000, and we read stories like this, which talk about election machine troubles, or this, which talks about endless waiting, or this, which talks about GOP efforts to disenfranchise poor voters, or this, where official looking signs appear telling Democrats to vote on November 5 (not 4). So we're also afraid Democrats will somehow be cheated out of a deserved victory.

Is it fatigue or excitement? Has the past month been the equivalent of an extended Christmas Eve or the week or two before a big sporting event when our team is playing? Are we so excited that we cannot wait until Election Day? 

Is it fatigue or the promise of relief? We might be anticipating the Wednesday after the election just as we might be a little extra tired the week before a vacation.

Is it fatigue? Some of us have added the equivalent of a part-time job either working for the campaign or in my case reading about it to our already over-scheduled lives. So we really might be tired for all the reasons above and then some. 

--J.S.

The NYT Week In Review Page: Mr. Thrust & Mr. Parry

Poor John McCain--first he discovers his vice-presidential candidate disagrees with him on gay marriage, then, a caricature of him winds up on the front page of the New York Times "Week In Review" section in which he is endowed with the moniker "Mr. Thrust." To make matters worse, a "CHANGE" banner Adams and Eves across his crotch.

Coincidence?

Hard to say, but it's not what you would have expected for Mr. McCain's porn name--something more like Pepper Lakeshore comes to mind.

But, Mr. Obama doesn't come off much better in this version. His visage is scrunched and overly adolescent. He looks too much like a cross between Alfred E. Neuman and Nipsey Russell.

Still, in the semiotic tug-o-war within this image, the taller, lankier Obama--who also seems to be using his hips to gain leverage on Mr. Thrust--I give the edge to Mr. Parry (though not in the nickname contest).

The T-Shirt Matrix: What Images of Obama Tell us about Obama (and Us)

As interesting as the possible Obama t-shirt options are, perhaps even more intriguing is the effect of this unintentional tic-tac-toe matrix.

As an individual icon, Obama's visage is now no longer noteworthy; it's even quotidian. But, when arranged in this nearly collage-type design, the various images enter into dialogue with each other. They tell us how we have seen, and perhaps even tell us how we should see Obama.

They also demonstrate the various ways Obama's face has been translated into popular culture. In this case, what emerges is overwhelming evidence for a kind of mytholigization of Obama. Many of these suggest a sort of abstract, woodcut aesthetic that evokes either propaganda or political art. However, almost none of the images are particularly "patriotic," which suggests the degree to which Obama's Obamaness transcends politics.

Canvassing, Part I

A few days ago, I canvassed for Barack Obama with my friend Miles and his daughter, Sophia, already famous for their extensive participation in Hanover County near Richmond, where they live. Hanover County is a reliably Republican county, but the Obama campaign is taking nothing for granted--they hope to significantly reduce the Republican margin in the county.

For the most part my participation was as sort of a pack mule, carrying campaign literature, as Miles asked each household (that had previous either been identified as undecided or had not received a completed visit) their voting preferences. We spent about two hours in this highly Republican area and ended up hitting about 25 houses.

The process is highly refined, and Miles and Sophia had a definitive pattern. Working from a map, we methodically went up to each house; Miles rang the doorbell and stepped back off the porch and waited for the person to answer. He first introduced himself, his daughter and me, then asked respondents if they were the person on the list, and when they replied, he asked the residents if they had made a decision about their voting preferences for both the president and the Senate and then carefully noted the reply.

The OED defines canvas "to entangle or catch in a net," but if there is such a net, it's of the flimsiest of materials; there is no hard sell, even if the voter is undecided. My friends seemed to understand the balance between the privacy of the resident and aims of the campaign; the most symbolic aspect of the campaign was Miles's deliberate decision to walk off the porch to stand on the walk (it's also interesting that all the houses in this particular development had both well defined porches and walks). It suggested Miles's desire to seem non-threatening. As I confessed when we walked on these suburban streets, I hate when people knock on my door, and Miles seem to understand this. 

But it was also true that Miles was determined to reach every house and so he had to balance his own desires not to intrude with his strong will to reach every voter who might vote for Obama.

More canvassing stories later...

--J.S.