While watching the 2005 Tour de France I would often get mad at Lance Armstrong for being so careful, he only won one stage (two if you count the Team Time Trial). I didn’t care if he lost the whole race, call me unpatriotic, but it bothered me that Armstrong was so calculated and content to sit back and let his teammates lead him to victory. My hero during that tour was Alexander Nikolaevich Vinokourov, the national champion from Kazakhstan who rode for the T-Mobile team with Andreas Kloden and Jan Ullrich. Vinokourov “Vino” was exciting to watch, he appeared to be a lone-man, the outsider who made impressive breakaways and fought hard on the mountain stages. Emphasizing his outsider-ness Vino wore a teal national champion jersey, not the pink T-Mobile jersey. He was like an abused dog, during Stage 14 he was dropped from the Peloton, but mustered his strength and chased for 12 miles to catch up. THEN he launched an attack against Team Discovery (Lance Armstrong) just have his own teammates reel him back to the peloton. Witnessing passion, unpredictability, and drama is exciting, I wanted Vino to win the entire tour, instead he won just one stage.
As for the sport of kings, Karl Rove recently commented that both vice-presedential picks were “political.” I imagine he means Obama chose Biden to shore up his foreign policy inexperience, to emphasize his focus on the “middle class,” and to unleash an attack dog with formidable oration/debating skills. On the other side, I imagine he means McCain chose Palin to attempt to capture women voters, shore up his conservative credibility, and to counter (i.e. immobilize) Biden’s debating ability. When Rove characterized the VP selections as “political,” a decidedly negative euphemism, he connoted political pandering.
While I disagree a bit that the Palin pick was entirely “political,” choosing a first-term governor that had bucked the GOP in her home state is not the obvious choice, my question is why wouldn’t each candidate choose a VP for political reasons? Why wouldn’t they appeal to those with doubts or appeal to the party base? To me political pandering and making calculated decisions are the best thing to do if you want to get elected.
If this were the Tour de France, I would be waxing nostalgic about Vino’s impetuousness, passion, and spectacular performances. In sport drama is everything. In contrast, politics should be measured, we should value calculated decisions. After all, Vino did not win the Tour in 2005.
p.s. I heard McCain was doping.
