The eighth-grade championships were held on Thursday night for Dallas Parochial League basketball (congrats to my alma mater St. Paul Packers on winning the title, by the way). While that was going on, I couldn’t help but scratch my head at how similar the Republican debate looked – specifically the way most of the candidates acted. At least one of these groups was supposed to look and act like 13-year-olds.
Since the Republican candidates have decided to continue going this route, I’d like to propose a different way to decide this. Let’s just get down to it – three of these guys want to take each other out and the other (Gov. John Kasich) looks like a No. 8 seed squeaking into the playoffs on a two-game winning streak. Let’s get Jerry Jones to cut a deal with the party – an all-out brawl in the mud in the middle of AT&T Stadium.
Winner-take-all. Whoever makes it out alive at the end gets the nomination. If Donald Trump wants to bring Chris Christie along for a tag-team inside the ropes, great. A nice touch might even include a cameo by Hillary Clinton flying in on a wire attempting to throw a computer server on Ted Cruz’s head.
That would be fitting, at least. Think of the money possibilities (Jerry Jones is somewhere wringing his hands together with a maniacal smile).
What a mess.
The craziness should continue, and expect the unexpected. Kind of reminds me of the NFC East, if all of the players were 13, that is. The final question of the debate resulted in all of the candidates pledging that each would support whoever ended up being the eventual Republican Party nominee. That might equate to the Cowboys rooting for Philadelphia in the Super Bowl. If the Eagles could ever get there.
We should count our blessings, really. This time of year is usually limited to over-analyzing the NFL combine, along with the jockeying for position in the NBA and NHL for the playoffs.
The debates are great theater. Where else can we discuss topics like the size of people’s hands, what weight classification Marco Rubio would box in, and how flexible Trump might be at doing yoga on stage? And what, exactly, appeared in Cruz’s mouth at one point? (We assume that was simply some dinner he was saving for later).
So what’s next? Well, now we enter the stage of the campaign where the winner of each respective state gets a winner-takes-all number of delegates. Basically, in sports terms, Trump has a 3-to-1 lead in a best-of-seven on Cruz and Rubio; can one of the realistic challengers to the Donald’s lead make a comeback and make this a series?
It’s been entertaining but I’m already getting tired-head. And to think – over eight months left of this. Thank goodness we’re only days away from March Madness and weeks away from the best professional tournament in pro sports – the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Then again, whether you like them or not, a Trump-Hillary matchup would put Ali-Frazier to shame. The barbs that come from that might be found in the dictionary under “scorched earth.”
I still like my idea of a death match in the mud among all of the candidates. It would be more entertaining than the other championship contest won by the 13-year-old boys from St. Paul’s last night. Maybe.
