Think about your favorite basketball team being down big in a big game. I can easily think this way, as an alum of the University of Virginia. (Bada bing!)
So my ‘Hoos are down, say, 15 points to Maryland in the second half. It’s ACC basketball, so UVa. makes a run, cuts the lead to 10 points, then eight, then seven, then five, then after a Maryland hoop and a Virginia three, it’s down to four.
We’re right there – anything, a turnover, a shot rimming out and Maryland getting called for a foul on the loose ball, and the game is ours for the taking.
Alas … the Terps answer with a three, and we turn the ball over on our next possession, and before you know it, it’s back up to eight points, then 10, then 12, and time is running out.
You’ve seen this happen before. The team making the rally expends so much energy cutting into the lead that it really only takes one effective counterpunch-type response from the opponent to put the game out of reach.
This is where we are with the Virginia governor’s race right now. Creigh Deeds was down big all summer, but the Deeds side was able to whittle down the 15-point summertime lead for Bob McDonnell down to four on the strength of the controversy over McDonnell’s backwards-looking 1989 grad-school thesis.
But rather than turn the ball over on its next possession, the McDonnell side answered with a long-range bomb of its own following a key Deeds turnover in the form of the YouTube-video-favorite meandering answer from Deeds after the Fairfax debate on taxes.
It’s an eight-point ballgame now, and our side seems to be running out of steam.
Just like the basketball team that puts together a nice run in the second half only to come up short in the end.
– Column by Chris Graham
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