Yours truly just finished reading Race Of A Lifetime: How Obama Won The White House, a really entertaining book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin that we can’t recommend highly enough.
When we say ‘entertaining’, by the way, we mean packed with gossip. If lengthy tomes about fiscal policy are your cup of tea feel free to pass on this one. It's terrific: Heilemann and Halperin confirm everything you suspected about Sarah Palin, with unforgettable images of her being taught about the First World War - and the Second World War; they provide transcripts of John McCain outbursts which read like the script from Goodfellas; and they show that the most savage combat of all was between Obama and Hillary Clinton, ostensibly members of the same party.
Sport is also a running theme in the book, which shouldn’t surprise anyone interested in US politics (at the height of his paranoia, when Richard Nixon finally skulked out of the White House to chat to some students, he could only discuss college football).
John McCain, for instance, was close to Rudolph Giuliani, due to their shared love of baseball – they sat together when their two teams made the 2001 World Series. One of the few facts McCain’s hastily-assembled background check of Sarah Palin turned up was the nickname ‘Barracuda’ from her high school basketball days.
When Palin’s astounding ignorance came under attack from the press, McCain’s staff tranquilised their man by cutting off the news channels and letting him watch ESPN for hours. Obama’s early cockiness revealed itself in metaphors and similes involving Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson, with the Chicago Senator usually doing pretty well from the comparisons.
Obama’s genuine love for basketball provided another lift when he went on his pre-election international tour: in front of hundreds of US troops in the Middle East, he sank a three-point shot at the first time of asking, a neat enough metaphor in itself.
This happens in Ireland too, of course – the invocation of sport, if not politicians scoring effortless baskets, or even effortful baskets. When your correspondent worked in Leinster House in a previous existence, he was unfortunate enough to attend a committee meeting at which a Minister for Finance compared his tax plan to a manager who sends his full-backs bombing down the wing, with the midfielders - or the relevant concessions under the new scheme - tucking in when they do that because otherwise you’re left caught for cover in the centre...
Several days later, when the rescue teams found us, that particular metaphor was still wandering in the wilderness, trying to find a conclusion. On quiet evenings, I fancy I can hear it still.
Better, though, was the Deputy from a midlands constituency who finished a lengthy oration on... ah, take your pick: fishing, the North, the West, whatever you like.
He wrapped up with a final wish which had nothing to do with anything he’d mentioned up to that: he wished his local GAA team well in the All-Ireland club series, as “they were going to beat” a certain team from Cork that weekend (if you guessed that said team wear green and black you’d be right).
Rising to respond, the Minister – who happened to be from Cork – caught your blogger’s eye and murmured, with a quick eye-roll towards the recently seated cheerleader, murmured, “Some hope,” before going on with, “The Deputy has raised some interesting points...”
Well, he was wrong about that. In truth, the Deputy in question couldn’t have raised a point if you gave him the magic beans Jack picked up on the way to market. But he wasn’t wrong about the result of the game. It wasn't the race of a lifetime, either. It wasn't even the race of that weekend.
