Welcome to a fixed fight. Political conventions are wrestling without the steroids, though a couple of the delegates from New Jersey look suspicious.
Excuse the sports references, even as the process of choosing the next president of the United States invariably slops over into my world.
Politics could not survive without the sports cliché, most conspicuously the two words that sent us off to our most recent war. Slam dunk.
The Democrats are rounding third and heading home; it’s the two minute drill, the shot clock is running down; he shoots, he scores. We get none of that. We get the postgame interview where Barack Obama shouts, “I’m going to Disney World,” or to the White House, lately filled with cartoon characters.
What went on between Obama and Hillary Clinton was a horse race, with calls at every post, front runner, neck and neck, faded in the stretch. This is not that race.
This is the winner’s circle where the horse gets a wreath of roses and a hard biscuit.
Here Obama gets the free world and a used airplane. That is, provided he can keep from fumbling, or losing the puck, or being called out on strikes, or missing the putt. He has, oh, two or three dozen match points and 30 years on the other guy.
This is history we are constantly reminded, not to drag up a Jackie Robinson reference, even if it does fit.
It is appropriate that this all takes place in the sports arena where the resident NBA team is mostly show, all flash and little finish. The finale will wrap up in a football stadium with the Obamans waving huge No. 1 foam fingers and the Clinton camp asking for instant replay.
Obama is the quarterback, the starting pitcher, the point guard, the anchor leg on the relay. Joe Biden to Obama, would be Pippen to Jordan, Drysdale to Koufax, Rice to Montana. Hillary will show up to accept her silver medal.
The party platform would be the game plan, used until it no longer works, in which case, say, a promise of a national health service becomes whatever the HMO can get away with.
To give it a sports number, this is DNC XLV, the 45th since 1832 when Democrats gathered in Baltimore to choose a playmate for President Andrew Jackson, the historically harmless Martin Van Buren.
For our part, we gave the world William Jennings Bryan, the only other chance we had, a gift so unappreciated that we weren’t given another turn at bat for 100 years.
It is our second convention and the coincidence that the last time the Democrats gathered here the Chicago Cubs won the World Series must not be lost like a sock in the bed clothes.
Omens are to Cubs fans as pillow chocolates are to dieters, always tempting and never enough.
Proud posters greet arrivals at DIA, rendering our virtues for inspection, though there is no explanation for the large blue horse with the fierce red eyes rearing at the approach to the terminal.
This has nothing to do with our most prized civic entity, the Broncos, but is our version of the Eiffel Tower, hated by everyone now but one day to be beloved. It is leftover from a traveling carnival and is no more an indication of our cultural sophistication than our local oysters, which you really must try.
We have swept up and dusted the shelves; we’ve put out the good china but are watching the silverware. We have concocted special holding pens for unruly guests, made of only the finest chain link, our version of the naughty child’s time out.
Clearly we want the Democrats to like us, even if we have not often liked the Democrats. Only once in the last 10 presidential elections has Colorado voted for a Democrat. This state is as red as a blush, except for Boulder, which, as we all know, belongs in California. Twice this very newspaper endorsed George W. Bush. Fool me once…
But we will do what we can, give the Democrats a place to hold the pep rally after the game is already over, maybe even cheer a bit ourselves.
This is easily the biggest thing to happen here since John Tesh played Red Rocks. Not as big as the day Ernest Byner fumbled or the night Matt Holliday slid face first across home plate. Let’s not get carried away here.