In 1951 the Manheim Central football team was picked by the local pundits to soundly defeat the team from Manheim Township. The game was to be played at the old Stumpf Field on the Fruitville Pike in Lancaster. The local newspapers played it up big.
Manheim Central lost – 51 to 7. Numerous clichés come to mind: Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched, there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley, and so on ad nauseum. The point is that things don’t always work out according to plan.
Fast forward to 2010. Republican Scott Brown is running against Martha Coakley for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat representing Massachusetts. Kennedy held the seat for 46 years. As a Democrat, Coakley was a shoo-in, or was she?
For starters, she ran a somewhat lackadaisical campaign: not advertising on TV until the last weeks of the race, refusing to go out and meet voters because it was too cold, taking a vacation in the midst of the campaign, etc.
Even with all these blunders she would probably have won the election, but for one thing: voters are distrustful of the Washington politicians in general, and the Obama administration in particular. Fed-up voters vetoed federal healthcare plans, bank bailouts, executive bonuses in the financial industry and over-the-top government spending.
And until way to late, the Democrats did not recognize there was a problem. They now hold a 59 to 41 majority in the Senate – not enough to shut off filibusters.
All of the old saws I mentioned above apply in this case. In addition, the Will Rogers’ quip applies: “I don’t belong to any organized political party – I’m a Democrat.”
Manheim Central lost – 51 to 7. Numerous clichés come to mind: Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched, there’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley, and so on ad nauseum. The point is that things don’t always work out according to plan.
Fast forward to 2010. Republican Scott Brown is running against Martha Coakley for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat representing Massachusetts. Kennedy held the seat for 46 years. As a Democrat, Coakley was a shoo-in, or was she?
For starters, she ran a somewhat lackadaisical campaign: not advertising on TV until the last weeks of the race, refusing to go out and meet voters because it was too cold, taking a vacation in the midst of the campaign, etc.
Even with all these blunders she would probably have won the election, but for one thing: voters are distrustful of the Washington politicians in general, and the Obama administration in particular. Fed-up voters vetoed federal healthcare plans, bank bailouts, executive bonuses in the financial industry and over-the-top government spending.
And until way to late, the Democrats did not recognize there was a problem. They now hold a 59 to 41 majority in the Senate – not enough to shut off filibusters.
All of the old saws I mentioned above apply in this case. In addition, the Will Rogers’ quip applies: “I don’t belong to any organized political party – I’m a Democrat.”
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