I am admittedly guilty of using sports analogies to describe political campaigns and after years of political activity I know what it feels like, from many sides, when a wound opens up and the opponent smells blood. Such is now the case with the Rand Paul campaign.
After months of watching Paul mystifiy observers with his incredible ability to raise money, his timing with regard to the TEA party movement, his tireless criss-crossing of the Commonwealth and his ability to attract incredible amounts of attention, every experienced political adviser in the nation could predict what comes next after a candidate approaches the apex of his pendulum swing: the crowd's appetite is whetted to watch his fall.
There is no more popular sport among political writers, obervers, hacks and pundits than snarling, snapping and jumping into the feeding frenzy when the front runner begins to bleed. Couched in terms of and alternating between feigned sorrow over "such bad luck", wistfully imagining what "might have been" and then viciously tearing at his flesh the amount of attention a candidate gets as the press tries to bring him down is often at least equal to the amount of press he got from them as they boosted him up.
Well, they can't say I didn't try to warn them.
The Rand Paul campaign has been rocked by what is only likely to be the first in a series of flaps. This one is over a campaign staffer's myspace page and should be settled by his resignation. But it won't be. That's not how the game is played. And despite the HOPES of many that the game would CHANGE time and time again we are left with the hollow reality that it is we, the audience, that keeps it the same. Promoters could still fill a colliseum with overflow crowds to watch lions consume humans if it was allowed.
Welcome to the big times fellas. Now let's see how you move on past this one. That might tell us more about you than how you got into it in the first place did.
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