Monday night’s great game found a great ending to an otherwise needy book – the Bowl Championship Series (“BCS”).
The BCS team has had some memorable games over its long and mostly controversial history, including Ohio State’s double win over Miami in January 2003, Texas’ triumph over USC there years later and last night’s incredible contest. It also created an aura of grandeur around SEC football, especially regarding Alabama, and while Ohio’s Buckeyes made the most appearances of any in the BCS Bowl with 10 appearances, no one in Columbus or anywhere outside the South would shed a tear over the death of a complicated system , which overturned key traditions and allowed computers to determine who qualified for the one game that truly mattered.
Now three matches count and hopefully this number will boost in the future. The play-offs – the shortest event consisting of two series of matches – are the best way to determine the “best” – and the champion will now have to win consecutive vital matches under pressure and screaming in the spotlight, in front of tens of millions of viewers. There are several of them…including the highly regarded and deeply experienced Jeffrey Anderson writing for the Weekly Standard– who don’t like the direction college football is heading, but if the goal is clarity about which team is the best in the country, the recent College Football Playoff (“CFP”) will be a significant improvement over the chaos that has reigned in the BCS.
Which, of course, brings me to the presidential nomination process. The 2016 edition of the demolition derby is already underway, and if anyone doesn’t believe me, watch last night’s edition of CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper and then read my interview with Tapper about he and his guests’ discussion of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (A transcript of my interview with Tapper can be found here. The Daily Caller version, my version of Jake’s panel, is here. See what I mean: started.)
Started but not organized yet. This organization will be the subject of my interview with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus on today’s show. The 2012 and 2008 GOP nominating processes were a disaster for the GOP, a crazy combination of the archaic nature of the caucuses and primaries – Iowa must come first, New Hampshire second, etc. – and the incomprehensible, contrived and completely random sequence of GOP debates that devolved into an endless a 30-round mud wrestling match. Neither John McCain in 2008 nor Mitt Romney in 2012 benefited from the fiascos, and we forget how horribly the 2008 Democratic nomination process got out of Democratic control. (We forget because the financial panic of the fall of 2008 made everything before that moot.)
The central elements of the general campaign – the debates with their absurd “town halls” and the left, left and far-left questions and assumptions – are also damaged beyond repair. The act of voting itself – who can do it and when – is being shifted from state to state, and in the drug-smoking state of Colorado there is now something like an “everyone gets a ballot in the mail six weeks in advance” rule.
The Framers wouldn’t be elated. Getting to the recent president is as fun as the best opening night of BCS-era bar shouting, ending with blows against September’s out-of-conference Big Ten opponents, or the appropriateness of saying “student-athlete” in connection with any number of specific programs. “Funny” definitely is NO but that’s the point. Finding a man or woman capable of becoming a general, competent in the wide range of skills needed, and ready to deal with Putin and the PRC politburo – that’s what the system should be designed for. Not entertainment.
Priebus is a very sharp guy, and the parts he can control, shape and improve, he intends to control, shape and improve, with an early GOP convention that’s a certainty, and his location in a key city with the necessary amenities and straightforward access is a certainty. (Did someone say Cleveland?) Fixing the master calendar is a much more arduous task, but he and his team are struggling with it too, and there’s a very good argument that earnest GOP candidates should just tell Iowa officials “so long” fire drills that they are not a fair assessment of anyone’s strengths and weaknesses. New Hampshire, yes, a swing state with tradition and retail campaigns, but also a true elementary school. South Carolina and Florida, yes and yes, also key tests of real strengths. But apart from these three primaries The RNC must impose a rational order: favor primaries that are closed so that Republicans select their candidates, test the field and finalize candidates in states that must be won if the White House is to be won – places like Ohio, Virginia and Colorado. And not through caucuses, but through mass voting, which is the same way these states will be won in the fall of ’16.
Much like the realities that ultimately brought change to college football, the political realities of the recent era should force the GOP to at least pristine up its own nomination process. We do not want or need a long circus that entertains the Manhattan-Beltway media elite. Republicans, especially the immense center-right coalition that elected Reagan and W, want to win the White House. This means a set of rule changes designed to determine the strongest candidate.
It’s time to say goodbye to nostalgia and the needs of cable networks. It’s time to win.
