Inside Baseball

I play retail politics for fun in the western suburbs of Chicago. (If I could play it for profit, you wouldn't be reading this right now.) Inside any campaign, be it for an office as small as alderman or as large as governor, there is a tendency to over-inflate the importance of every little nuance of every little issue, sometimes at the expense of the big picture.

That's because, in a campaign, you live in an echo chamber peopled by sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated political junkies, whose greatest joy in life is to eat, drink and breathe politics, and smoke Marlboros. But when you're done for the day, you put it all behind you to go to a bar and talk...politics!

Like sharks, if we stop swimming, we'll sink to the bottom and die.

During this seemingly endless, self-consuming feeding frenzy, I occasionally gain moments of lucidity and caution my candidates and compadres that none of what we talk about means ANYTHING to 98% of the people that we are trying to reach. You know, the voters? The ones we're supposed to be serving?

The blank stares I get over the rims of cheap draft beer through clouds of Marlboro smoke sometimes make me weep for the future of democracy.

"Inside baseball" is the term of art: that collection of arcana which infests the conversations and informs the judgment of those people dedicated to changing the course of history of the ward, or of the world. And it used to be the exclusive province of a rather small, self-selected society of those sharks, and their reporting remoras.

However, with the ascendancy of the 24-hour cable news cycle and the growth of political blogs (like this FINE site for which I write), the remoras have taken over the aquarium. MSNBC, CNN and FOX have become all inside baseball, all the time. And in cyberspace, every twist, eyeblink, stumble and gaffe are now instant fodder for any Joe Keyboard to become Joe Garagiola, Jr.

Interestingly, this minutiae mash has not had the far-reaching impact you might expect. And that's because no matter how many thousands of people read and post at these sites, no matter how many hundreds of thousands tune in to Countdown, there are still millions and millions of people who don't. (Sorry, Keith!)

That 98% I brought up in the bar a while ago? All this sound and fury brings that down to 95%. (Numbers adjusted for hyperbole, your actual level of interest my vary.)

And the effect it does have among all these freshmen cognoscenti (he said with the smug air of a sophomore) is merely to muddy the waters. Every 3 AM ad, every SNL skit, every Wright sermon that is now infesting our conversations is NOT informing the judgment of those who truly do play inside baseball, and you saw that on Friday.

Bill Richardson, player, endorsed Barack Obama. And THAT'S the ballgame, folks.

Of course, if you are attuned to inside baseball, the signs for that were there since before Ohio/Texas, when Richardson said the party should close ranks behind whoever had a clear lead, a clear DELEGATE lead. The lag between that statement and today was merely stagecraft.

There are a number of other indicators, too, that are there for all to see. And as soon as I mention them you're going to post a comment saying yeah, you knew it all along. Well, good, but I'm saying it here, first. Nyah!

Nancy Pelosi saying there will be no "dream ticket" means Obama is going to win.

Bob Graham saying Hillary Clinton's war vote was her commander-in-chief test means Obama is going to win.

Chris Dodd's endorsement means Obama is going to win.

John Edwards may not endorse anyone for a while, but the switch of his delegates in Iowa (and one of Clinton's) means Obama is going to win.

The not-with-a-bang-but-with-a-whimper redlighting of Florida, the Sequel and Michigan, Part Deux means Obama is going to win.

Most tellingly, today's report that, after all this, Obama has banked $30 million to Clinton's $3 million means that Obama is going to win, because - and here is the ultimate inside baseball tip - retail politics is still all about the benjamins, same as it ever was.

Oh, and by the way: yes, I know that Joe Garagiola, SR. was the ballplayer and analyst. But Joe Garagiola, Jr. is the Senior VP for Baseball Operations for Major League Baseball. And THAT, my friends, is inside baseball.