I caught this on the teevee last night, and I decided to look up Chris Cillizza's background. Because there are many bobbleheads who are really more interested in covering politics as a sport, and that's one of the reasons why we have such a misinformed electorate.

Bingo! From a feature in Northern Virginia Magazine:

But even Cillizza’s nerdiness can’t hedge out his inner jock. He’s a big sports fan, specifically of Georgetown basketball, Catholic University field hockey (coached by his wife Gia, often referred to as Mrs. Fix) and, strangely enough, 1980s professional wrestling flamboyanteur Ric Flair.

In fact, the person Cillizza cites as having had the most influence on his writing style was Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy on ESPN.com.

“The thing that I love about politics is that it’s so similar to what I like about sports—personalities, history, statistics—all that intrigues me,” Cillizza says. “Every race is different in its way. Just like there are similarities in every baseball game—there’s nine innings, a lot of times it ends roughly the same—every game has its own unique rhythm to it, its own unique personality and maybe one or two plays that you can point back and say, This made a difference.”

Yeah, except after a game, NOBODY DIES BECAUSE THE REF MADE A BAD CALL. And there you have the problem in a nutshell.