The Fourth Quarter

I generally don’t like sports analogies when discussing politics, because 1 – it’s more important than any game, and 2 – the analogy usually misses by a bit. But in this case, the analogy is close enough to be useful, and the point is important.

Back when I was younger, I was an official in several sports, including high school football here in Texas. Some games were tough, hard-fought matters, and when the last quarter started, both teams were tired and hurt. It came down in those contests, to who was willing to stick it out for twelve more minutes on the clock, maybe a couple or three dozen plays of bruising tackles, hard hits, and fighting your own body to go a little farther, carry the play through to the end, keeping up your block or running your route all the way through. Because you knew that the game was still anyone’s to have, even if you or they were ahead. Sometimes you could beat a big lead, if you were tough enough and refused to give up.

The media is completely in the tank for Obama, we know that. So it should not surprise anyone that the polls they publish all show him in the lead. Numbers can be fudged, and the polls have done that. The funny thing is, if we give up and don’t vote, if we sit on our butts and whine about the world and do not get our neighbors, friends and citizens motivated to support John McCain, then those weasels will have succeeded in getting us to quit and they will get the lopsided party turnout they are predicting. Make no mistake, though, if Obama wins it will be because too many good men did nothing.

I explained yesterday that when the polls are reweighted to historically valid norms, McCain leads Obama. It’s tight but very real, and if we just fight through to the end the way we have through August, then we will certainly win.

Want more? There’s a lot of folks still undecided out there. Taking the levels of support by party from four major polls which published their internals, here are the portions of undecided voters as of October 1:

GALLUP: 15.52% of voters are still undecided

CBS NEWS: 9.70% of voters are still undecided

FOX NEWS: 15.56% of voters are still undecided

Franklin & Marshall: 17.19% of voters are still undecided

When you add that information to the margin of error and correct for the historically invalid weighting the polls are using, it becomes absolutely clear that this race has a long way to go. Trusting the MSM is like believing what the other team’s cheerleaders tell you.

Gut it up, this one’s no where near over, we’re just starting the fourth quarter. Now is where we find out who’s got what it takes.