Bob Maistros

So just last week I was bloviating to my neighbor that the Yankees and Phillies were mortal locks to face off in the World Series.  I didn’t even know why they bothered with the preliminary playoff rounds.

Oops.

Yes, each team has just closed its respective league’s championship series to within a game.  But to reach the Fall (these days, sometimes Early Winter) Classic, each will have to win two more contests after having fallen into a cavernous three-games-to-one hole.  There are two chances both will make it to the Series:  Slim and None.  And Slim just caught the bus to Arlington, Texas by way of San Fran.

Red, white and blue -- or yella?

As they say, that’s why they play the games.  You still have to win your way in to the finals.

Notate bene, my Republican friends.

Oh.  You thought you would just waltz back into power in the House by hanging in a neutral corner while the voters rained their fury on Barack Obama?  You believed those brash predictions that a wave of animus toward health care and historic mega-spending would sweep in enough candidates to retake control of the Senate?

Dream on.

The high-fiving and celebrating has been going on in conservative circles since early summer, at least.  But there’s only one thing – they’re still planning to hold an election on November 2; some states have begun already.

How inconvenient.

And surely enough, as we sweep aside the prematurely launched confetti, it becomes clearer that races many considered stashed thoroughly into the bag are tightening.  Like Pennsylvania, Colorado, Kentucky and Wisconsin, where large Republican leads have shrunk or been frittered away altogether.

Washington, California and Illinois have to remain in the wishin’ and hopin’ category given their deep blue status.  Connecticut?  Slimy and smarmy as that credentials-puffing attorney general may seem, it’s not likely that ‘roids-and-steel-chair mogul Linda McMahon will be able to wrestle a lead from him.

And those who are counting out Harry Reid might remember that this guy had more lives than a large colony of feral felines when everyone was writing off the prospects of Obamacare.

Plus, labor is pouring out money like it’s the Federal Reserve to protect its large and highly invested government workforce.  And Democrats, despite all appearances based on their votes, aren’t complete idiots.  They are tacking right, scaring up October surprises, running away from their voting records and focusing what they’ve done for their districts.  Shockingly, even though a huge percentage of the country thinks we’re headed in the wrong direction, somehow most people think their own Washington-sotted solons are part of the solution.

Now, unlike every other instapundit with a blog or a camera trained on his or her talking head, I’m willing to admit that all I really know about these races is what I don’t know.  But I have a strong feeling (confirmed by polls) that despite the “enthusiasm gap” we are all hearing about that supposedly favored Republicans, most Americans aren’t all that enamored with the GOP.  They’re just ticked off about ObamaGov.

The problem is it’s hard to sustain that mad-as-hell intensity all the way to Election Day, especially when Congress has adjourned, the nation is momentarily safe and the Dems and their minions are in full slash and spin mode.

Republicans seem to have forgotten that you can’t back into a so-called “realignment election.”  Obamacare, stimulus, omnibus, bailouts, cap and trade, the failure to enact a budget or preserve tax cuts and smelly backroom deals all gave the GOP a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to engage the American people on what government is really for, and how it should best be run and paid for.

Their tepid “Pledge to America” – with its clumsy and pathetic cribbing from the Declaration of Independence as a cover for mushy generalities and catchy gimmicks — provided a half life of a short news cycle.  Yet the Republicans might have proposed a new vision of smart, sleek, streamlined, modern, responsive and effective government designed to meet real needs, especially those of working families, in the 21^st century.

Uh, you mean stand for something?  You mean take a risk and give the other side a target to attack?  What, are you nuts?

Yes, I am nuts.  But that’s beside the point.

In an era when the name of Ronald Reagan is on the tip of every Republican tongue, his party has forgotten his core lesson (one taken to heart by Barack Obama):  you win big, you bring about real change, by taking adventurous and, dare it be said, even audacious stands.  In the Gipper’s words, not pastels, but bold colors.

Going into what could have been the biggest electoral playoffs in generations, color this GOP’s uniforms tan, pink, lavender, grey and especially, yella.  And that’s why this one ain’t over by a long shot.

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