Hail Mary
Charles Krauthammer thinks Barack Obama is going to win the election. More interestingly, he uses a revealing metaphor: “Krauthammer’s Hail Mary Rule: You get only two per game. John McCain, unfortunately, has already thrown three. The first was his bet on the surge, a deep pass to David Petraeus who miraculously ran it all the way into the end zone.”
In case you’re not a football fan, the essential characteristic of a “hail Mary” pass (just hurling the ball downfield in the direction of the end zone) is that it’s a bad play. Which is to say that the expected value of such a pass is extremely low. But sometimes you throw one at the end of a game if you’re in a situation where any play other than a successful “hail Mary” will result in your team losing the game. Under those circumstances, the fact that the play has only a low chance of succeeding isn’t relevant. It’s important to note, however, that the logic behind the play depends crucially on the fact that a football game is a zero-sum enterprise with bivalent outcomes. You either win or lose, there’s no middle ground. And if the other guys win, you lose.
Some things in life are like that. Notably, many games. But also US Presidential elections. Significantly, though, prolonged wars of choice aren’t like that at all. Iraq is the kind of situation where a whole range of possible outcomes is possible, it involves more than two players, and the interactions between the players aren’t zero sum. It’s not, in other words, at all the kind of situation in which it’s appropriate to throw a metaphorical hail Mary. Unless, that is, you’re thinking of Iraq policy primarily as an electioneering gambit.
69 Responses to “Hail Mary”
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October 3rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
The Republicans think of ALL policy ENTIRELY as an electioneering gambit.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Why a picture of my Huskies losing? Soon, Willingham will be gone…
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
The war on the people of Iraq was never anything else. It was the World’s Most Expensive Campaign Commercial&tm; (Thanks DXM). Now it is a drag on the Republicans Party, but it played for years before running out of steam. You wouldn’t expect LJB’s Daisy to work if it were run in a continuous loop for 7 years straight either.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:20 pm
More significant, however, is that a “Hail Mary” play is a pass into the endzone, not (typically) one thrown to a player who would then be expected to “miraculously [run] it all the way into the end zone.”
Therefore, Krauthammer fails.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The Hail Mary pass is the wrong analogy anyway. McCain has been calling gadget plays (reverse/end around, Statue of Liberty, single wing, direct snap to running back). Those can be successful if you have already established a conventional passing/running game, and need to keep the defenders honest and at home. They are much less likely to be successful if they are all you have.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Hate to be too picky here, but a football game is not a zero sum enterprise. There are ties. One of the most famous ties in football history, Havard beats Yale 29-29 (1968) has an odd relevance since Tommy Lee Jones on the good but not great Harvard team put the stopper on Calvin Hill and Brian Dowling (both went on to NFL careers and of course Brian Dowling was the inspiration for Doonesbury’s BD), playing on what had to have been Yale’s best team ever, so we know Al Gore had to have been in attendance at that game (being Tommy Lee Jones’ roomate), and I have a sneaking suspicion that George W Bush would have been there too since it was supposed to cap a perfect unbeaten season for Yale.
Ahh the Universe is just one big coincidence, ain’t it.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Of course, it’s also possible that McCain really believed in the surge and it wasn’t an election ploy at all. I’m not a big fan of McCain, but he does on occasion choose what he believes is right over electioneering (Opposing corn subsidies while campaigning in Iowa is a good example)
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Matt, you can also throw one as time runs out in the first half.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Good point on wars. But even Presidential elections aren’t simple W-L situations. Assuming that a candidate or campaign cares at some level about policy/governance outcomes, and about future political prospects, the point spread means an enormous amount. Certainly the Parties, as institutions, would rather lose a close election than lose a blow-out (although factions in a particular party may not feel that way).
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Hate to be too picky here, but a football game is not a zero sum enterprise. There are ties.
That’s not true in college football anymore. They instituted an overtime format (which is pretty wacky) a little over 10 years ago, which results in every single game having a winner.
Ties are still possible in the NFL during the regular season. A tie at the end of regulation then goes to a 15-minute sudden-death overtime, and if no one scores in the whole OT period, the game ends in a tie. But this almost never happens, I think only about once a decade on average. The overwhelming majority of OT games in the NFL end with somebody scoring points and winning.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Roll on you Bears!!!
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Somewhat related, did anyone see David Brooks’ absurd column today? While most of his piece was pure bs, I’d like to give him credit for this last piece of political analysis:
“…in a country that is furious with Washington, she presented herself as a radical alternative.”
If by radical alternative he meant someone who is much more foolish, uninformed and incoherent than the majority of people in Washington, I’d say David’s argument holds some water.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Right. McCain isn’t 1984 Boston College. He’s 2006 Boise State. The problem is, he’s playing against a really good team, and not mediocre crap like 2006 Oklahoma. He’s playing 2006 Florida, and he’s getting his ass kicked.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Actually, this Hail Mary picture has more interesting similarities to the situation at hand.
This is a picture from the Cal v Washington game in 2006. Washington actually *completed* this hail mary — the 3 Cal players you see here actually knocked the ball away to a Washington player not in the frame who then was able to run it into the endzone. Cal did come back to win in OT. They were up by a TD, when the Washington QB forced a bad pass into the middle on 2nd and 11 where it was intercepted by a Cal linebacker to end the game.
The parallel here is that McCain is resorting to hail mary passes just to *pull even* with Obama. His desperation tactics which grow more and more numerous are just to make up ground. And that’s what Washington had to do here — they had to throw it just to tie Cal. And when you’re resorting to such low percentage plays, it is highly likely that you’ll make mistakes. McCain’s suspension stunt was a great example of him just handing his mistakes to Obama to just get exposed as a buffoon. And the catbird’s seat is a great seat to be in.
Go Bears!
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Matt, you kinda screwed up the analogy though. Iraq isn’t the game, the election is the game. Iraq, since it’s a hail mary, is but one play(issue) among many.
I’m figuring Iraq is the hail mary at the end of the first half
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I don’t think the possibility of a tie makes football not a zero sum enterprise. A zero sum enterprise is one in which there are two sides and anything good for one side is bad for the other. The possibility of a tie does not change that.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Looks like Sarah fumbled on the 5 yrd line after her big catch. John McCain is no Doug Flutie!
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Picking Palin wasn’t a Hail Mary, anyways. It was a Holy Roller/Inarticulate Deception.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Matthew, I think that Doug Flutie would disagree with your contention that the “Hail Mary” is a “bad play.”
Frankly, the “Hail Mary” is a bad analogy because it forgives the McCain campaign’s execution (which happens to be the key to a successful Hail Mary). Had the McCain campaign executed better, then they might not be in a position where they would have to try throwing the ball long to make up the difference between them and Obama.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
That’s not true in college football anymore. They instituted an overtime format (which is pretty wacky) a little over 10 years ago, which results in every single game having a winner.
Yep, those are the rules now, but, while there is some argument about where the term “Hail Mary” came into football usage, the Staubach pass to Drew Pearson in the last 36 seconds of the Dallas Minnesota game in 1975 is usually pegged as the first instance of popularizing the phrase, although I am aware of other earlier uses of the phrase in the football context. And, probably the most common reference to the play is Doug Flutie’s Miracle in Miami in 1984. Both instances when ties are common. The zero sum explanation does not apply. Back in those days any good player worth his salt would tell you that a tie was like kissing your sister. You go for the win or nothing.
Ara Parseghian played for the tie in 1966 against Michigan and it ruined his reputation forever. Coulda been another Knute Rockne…coulda
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Ties don’t keep it from being a zero-sum game, they keep it from having bivalent outcomes. It’s still zero-sum, because what’s better for one side is worse for the other.
(Interestingly, hockey is no longer zero-sum, because the teams get more total points in the standings when the game goes into overtime.)
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Where’s Petey to tell us about how well Team Sedona is doing?
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I know I’ve been snarky and rude, but I think this anonymous essay that I read is really worth thinking about:
Democrats will vote for the Democrat. Republicans will vote for the Republican. That’s how it has always been.
John McCain and Joe Biden are politicians. They know their numbers, and they know Washington.
What is different about this election is culture. Where is America going, culturally?
This is where Barack Obama and Sarah Palin come in.
Some say race is a factor against Obama, but I say it is the opposite: Obama has been propelled upwards by his skin color. The positive ‘racism’ (Black-Americans supporting him, White-Americans feeling guilty about the legacy of slavery) far outweighs the few remaining pockets of negative racism (traditional bigotry) that still exist in our country.
Whereas Black-Americans account for 12 percent of America, women number about 51 percent.
This is where America’s reaction to Sarah Palin gets interesting. It is not only sexism at play, but regionalism too. Keep in mind that America’s reaction could be vastly different from the media’s reaction, which tries to intervene in how America thinks and observes for itself.
For the last decade, American women have been trying to become either the fifth ‘Manhattanite’ cast member of ‘Sex and the City’ or a ‘Desperate Housewife’ on Wisteria Lane. The White male executives who created, packaged and marketed these female stereotypes have made plenty of money as women across America spent time and money trying to become ‘Carrie Bradshaw’. But somehow, these wanna-be’s never lived it up as glamorously.
Sarah Palin is all about God, Family, Country and Shot-Guns. She is a completely New American Woman. She was not constructed by a Public Relations agency in either New York City or Los Angeles. She is not a Hollywood creation. Sarah Palin is simply a product of American small-town wholesomeness: happy childhood, hard work, self-discipline and a bright, and almost chirpy, outlook on life.
Sarah is not the high-maintenance, drama-seeking, bulimia-suffering fragile caricature of a working woman as peddled by TV.
Her husband, Todd Palin, is not a neurotic metro-sexual obsessing over the price of organic arugula, or whining about his commitment phobias to his shrink. He is a man’s man, and frankly, a woman’s man: just your regular American guy—wholesome and uncomplicated.
Sarah and Todd are American ‘retro’, but it is retro made cool all over again. They are a brand of Americana that has been tested and true—genuine, confident and mature.
Something happened to the Obama brand on the way to the election. It is as if the fashion gods decided that “Didn’t you know? No one wears Obama after Labour Day.”
Once exotic and different, the Obama brand has been turned into something weird and creepy. “Obama’s Witnesses,” “Obama’s Blue-Shirts,” “The Obama Youth Fraternity League”…Plus, after the initial swooning over him, most people still think that there’s something “off” about Obama; as if he’s hollow, or hiding something.
Today, the Obama brand has become decidedly “uncool”. That’s why people tuned out from watching him debate McCain.
On the other hand, Americans are discovering that they are intrigued by Sarah Palin. The TV pundits may want to spin things their way, but the surest measure of who won the Vice-Presidential Debate is that, at the end, the vast majority of viewers walked away from their TV sets and said to themselves, “I’d like to see more of Sarah Palin—unfiltered and uncut.”
The Obama camp may be celebrating too early. There are still plenty of people out there that haven’t made up their mind, and Obama’s triumphalism may begin to sound like arrogance, and he’s already been accused of that.
This is indeed a culturally interesting time to be an American.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Bivalent outcomes? Really?
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Hail mary isn’t quite right. A better comparison is to the proverbial horseshoes and hand grenades … but then the McCain campaign tried throwing grenades so that doesn’t work either. Let’s stick to the candidate’s pastime and say he put all the chips on a hardway bet, rolled the dice and crapped out.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
If the Huskies had gone for two after that amazing catch, they could have won the game. Cal’s best weapon was its offense, and since they were guaranteed to get on the field in overtime, Willingham should have gone for the win right then to keep that most potent piece of Cal’s game off the field.
In fact, now that I think about it, John McCain is a little like Ty Willingham. They both have trouble distinguishing between strategies and tactics. They both ought to be better at their jobs than they are. They don’t make good calls under pressure. And neither one will be doing much after November.
Go Huskies!
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
but I think this anonymous essay that I read is really worth thinking about:
No it isn’t, it’s chock full of cultural identifiers that are a million miles away from the concrete challenges that Americans face.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
He understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well.
I guess this is a pretty bald admission that Reagan ran a completely cynical campaign, running guns and covert ops to central america while soothing the mob … just like Obama is doing? To equate the campaign of Senator Obama with that then former Governor Reagan is to see things in the most cynical of optics. It’s gonna be tough for the pasty faces to lose this one. McCain’s country club, jet set crew aren’t going to be pleased that one of their own has lost the election to one of the elitist house help.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
It’s important to remember that both John McCain and Doug Flutie are real short.
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
What about about a flea-flicker? Or a hook-and-lateral. Boise State used that to great effect against Oklahoma. The Statue of Liberty, also. And don’t forget the “Fumblerooski.”
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Why a picture of my Huskies losing? Soon, Willingham will be gone…
The Huskies lost that game in overtime, but that particular Hail Mary worked against my Golden Bears. I was sick about it.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
No it isn’t, it’s chock full of cultural identifiers that are a million miles away from the concrete challenges that Americans face.
Not to mention fake issues and embedded straw-man arguments.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
What do you mean? There are only two possible outcomes in Iraq: victory, or surrender.
Come to think of it, those are the only two possible outcomes anywhere, aren’t they?
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
For the right-wing commentators I’ve read, Iraq is all about domestic U.S. politics. I suspect that President Bush sees it that way too, for example when he delayed the attack on Fallujah until after Election Day in 2004 or ordered the so-called “surge” to pre-empt any attempt by congressional Democrats to legislate a withdrawal.
The enemy, for Republicans, isn’t Iraqis or Al-Qaeda. It’s the Democrats. “Victory in Iraq” is defined as never having to admit the Democrats were right.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I may be revealing my ignorance about sports, but up until now I was certain that a Hail Mary shot was primarily a basketball metaphor–with the same purpose as Matt says, but involving a basket and a desperately thrown ball, not an end-zone.
The concept works in just about any context, but the image that pops into my head is always basketball, usually at the high school level (and I don’t really care much for either sport).
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
And lo and behold, I am revealing my ignorance, if Wikipedia is a reliable source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_Mary_pass
It was allegedly coined in 1975 in the context of football. I have probably heard it in the context of basketball, and that’s where it stuck in my mind.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
For the right-wing commentators I’ve read, Iraq is all about domestic U.S. politics.
Google “Mickey Herskovitz+Bush+War”
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Paul, no, “Hail Mary” as a sports phrase was very definitely coined in 1975 by Dallas Cowboys QB Roger Staubach, who is Catholic. Court-length long shots at the end of a quarter are somewhat the same principle, though.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Link bolloxed in previous post, see here.
Staubach said he “closed his eyes, said a Hail Mary, and threw it as hard as he could”. He probably didn’t intend to coin a catch phrase, but it just took off after that.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Come to think of it, Norman Schwarzkopf misused the Hail Mary metaphor in his press conference after the first Iraq War. He talked about his flanking maneuver as a Hail Mary, which is pretty idiotic considering that there are much better football metaphors for such a maneuver.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
More importantly, Krauthammer’s rule is metaphorically nonsensical. You get two? By definition, a Hail Mary is a last gasp.
Barring a defensive pass interference call (which would result in a new play on the 1 yard line — a play which would most certainly not be a Hail Mary pass), it’s the last play of the game. You couldn’t possibly get two. Even if the first takes you into overtime, there’s no call for a Hail Mary in the sudden-death or turn-taking overtime scenarios of the NFL and college football.
Just terrible. I call for Krauthammer’s resignation.
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I just wanted to give a Sarah Palin-style “shout out” to the school I used to teach at, Middle Tennessee State which completed hail mary passes in two games this year already. One to beat Florida Atlantic on ESPN and another one that was stopped at the one yard line against Kentucky or they would have won there too!
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Betting on the surge as McCain defines it was not a Hail Mary in and of itself. I, too, would bet that if you put a lot more troops on the ground, you’ll get fewer successful attacks most of the time. The other internal changes in Iraq at that time also playesd a role. Betting that the surge would lessen violence was a pretty safe bet.
If he had actually had to bet that the other portion of the surge-political negotiation and change-worked in order to for the surge to be considered successful; if the surge actually had to BE successful in order for the public and the media to consider it so, then that would have been a Hail Mary.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
More importantly, Krauthammer’s rule is metaphorically nonsensical. You get two? By definition, a Hail Mary is a last gasp.
Actually that isn’t true. A Hail Mary play should come at the end of a game, last ditch effort pull the game out, etc. etc. But it can come at the end of a half, try for the go-ahead as the period ends for psychological effect. So you could run two Hail Mary plays in a single game, but not likely. The point though is it should always come as time is running out and in that respect Krauthammer’s analogy is inapt. We are nowhere near time running out.
In this case a gambling analogy would have been much better.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I considered the end of half Hail Mary, but I can’t recall ever seeing any and I’m guessing that most coaches would tell you that the risk of a returned pick or injury to the QB is too high to make it worthwhile.
That said, it’s a close enough explanation that I’m willing to let Krauthammer keep his job, but with a note on his permanent record.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
sidereal, Krauthammmer and DaveNYC are right on this one — you can throw a Hail Mary at the end of the half and at the end of the game — in both those situations anything short of a score won’t do you any good. And you needn’t be behind to throw a Hail Mary; it can be worth it no matter what the score is at the end of the half, and if the score’s tied at the end of regulation it can be worth taking a longshot for the end zone, if you’re very confident the other team won’t be able to get the ball in time to score.
In fact, in very rare cases you might get the chance to throw three Hail Marys in a game — suppose that after your end-of-regulation Hail Mary the score is tied (whether it succeeded or failed), if you have the ball as the clock is about to run out in overtime and you’re outside field-goal range, you might want to throw a Hail Mary on the last play of regulation. That’s how the last NFL tie game ended (Falcons-Steelers, 2002); Plaxico Burress actually caught the pass at the 1 yard line but didn’t get into the end zone. (That was the only Hail Mary in that game, though.)
Of course all this has no bearing whatsoever on how many desperate campaign gimmicks it was advisable for McCain to try.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Bah, the discussion moved on and resolved the point while I was typing up my exquisitely researched post. But I can add this link to a game with a Hail Mary at the end of the first half — an attempt from the 42, intercepted at the goal line. I think these are relatively common. In fact that pass attempt from the Baltimore 47 at the end might have been a Hail Mary too, so that might be the fabled two-HM game.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
The Palin pick reminds me of Super Bowl XXII. John Elway threw a 56-yard touchdown pass on the Broncos’ first play, which was a stunning and audacious move. That was all they had, though. The Redskins scored 35 points in the second quarter and won 42-10.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
…though looking closer, there were 24 seconds left at the end and the pass was to the running back, so I’m guessing it was an attempt to make the first down and get in FG range.
October 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
You could “miraculously ran it all the way into the end zone” if you intercepted the Hail Mary and ran it back all the way.
I think all references to McCain’s Hail Mary should quote Barney Frank: “It’s the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys.”
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
“Unless, that is, you’re thinking of Iraq policy primarily as an electioneering gambit.”
Or, more fairly, unless you think about foreign policy as a game of zero-sum, binary absolutes–a more accurate assessment of the Bush and McCain (i.e. Neocon) worldview, though perhaps not more generous.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
The war on the people of Iraq was never anything else. It was the World’s Most Expensive Campaign Commercial
Good point! That’s why Bush rushed to invade in early 2003. This would give him plenty of time (he assumed) to get it successfully completed by early 2004, just in time for his re-election campaign.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:45 am
I agree with those who are saying that the analogy is inapt because time isn’t running out (one of the defining characteristics of a Hail Mary pass). Whoever said upthread that Team McCain is running gadget plays on every down because it simply can’t compete on conventional plays is closer to the mark.
I think an even better sports analogy is this: This isn’t a football game at all, but a car race. McCain is a lap behind with five laps to go. Unless Obama blows a tire or runs out of gas or something, it’s simply not possible for McCain to catch up using conventional driving, so he’s decided to take Steve Schmidt’s advice and throw the steering wheel out of the window.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Matt – When you say bivalent, I suspect you mean the simpler binary. Or, if you want to impress with (what the Uncyclopedia calls) “a colossal superfluous colloquy”, boolean.
October 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
In basketball – we used to call the last second shot from half-court or further the “sailor shot.” Pray that a gust of wind from the rafters carry it to the hoop or off the backboard. McCain’s been succeeding with flea-flickers – trick plays as an earlier post said. They were a staple of the old AFL especially the Joe Namath-led N.Y. Jets. But, McCain doesn’t possess the talent and audacity of those QBs (Namath, Hadl, Lamonica) and is more like a deadingly predictable, over-the-hill late 60’s NFL QB trying trick plays in lieu of any kind of game plan with a chance at success.
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