PRESIDENTIAL FANTASY LEAGUE: WeeK 4 Scores

by Max Klinger

Where the avenues of sports and politics meet, there is a mailbox where we deposit a weekly letter; a mailbox called the Presidential Fantasy League . Here is this week's very special PFL delivery.


With the North Carolina and Indiana primaries today, Teams Clinton and Obama have been stealing most of the thunder this week. Clinton was on FOX with Bill O'Reilly while Obama was playing hoops with the UNC basketball team, including Tyler Hansbrough. Meanwhile, McCain was gearing up for his biggest fundraiser of the year this Wednesday.

TIME came out with their list of the 100 World's Most Influential People (PFL players Arnold Schwarzenegger and Billie Jean King are alumni). While no one from either team made it this year, Joel Stein of Time.com ranked them based them on metrics like Google and YouTube hits, Wikipedia entries and so on (Sound familiar?). Well, it turns out Clinton bested Obama by one spot, coming up as the fifth Most Influential Person In The World to Obama's sixth. McCain was 8th behind Bolivian revolutionary Evo Morales.

On to the scoring.

TEAM CLINTON

TWO PFL'ERS TO GET HONORARY DOCTORATES: +20
We read here that Red Sox president Larry Lucchino will receive an honorary Doctor of Law at Boston University's Commencement this year. Also receiving Doctors of Humane Letters … Billie Jean King.

SPORTS ANALOGY OF THE WEEK: +10
"To ask why Barack Obama can't immediately knock [Clinton] out of the race is like asking why the old Boston Celtics teams of Larry Bird and Robert Parish couldn't knock out the old Los Angeles Lakers teams of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar in less than seven games," said Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor of the California Progress Report.

POLL WE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT: +10
We recently read here about a July 1999 Roper poll that "queried respondents about women they admired or respected who had lived in the 20th century" and it included Billie Jean King and Hillary Rodham Clinton among company such as Mother Teresa, Oprah Winfrey, Coretta Scott King, Madonna, Marie Curie, Madeleine Albright, Sandra Day O'Connor, Jackie Onassis, Meryl Streep, Elizabeth Taylor, Golda Meir, Princess Diana, Barbara Walters, Tina Turner, Indira Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Margaret Thatcher.

SHAMELESS PROMOTION OF THE WOLF BLITZER INTERVIEW WE DID: +10
The Wolf-man gives props to Team Clinton financial supporter David Stern for how popular basketball has become around the world: "The biggest change is how much basketball has taken off, in Europe and other places. It's huge now. It's making tremendous inroads all over the globe. What's nice is, you see a lot of Americans playing over there, and tons of Europeans over here. David Stern and his people deserve tons of credit."

INTERESTING PFL SUBTEXT OF THE WEEK:+5
It turns out that Lucchino and Hillary Clinton have known each other (and were even colleagues) as long ago as the 70's. From the Boston University Today: "He graduated in 1972 and began his legal career working on the Watergate impeachment hearings alongside Hillary Rodham Clinton."

OTHER PLAYS THIS WEEK:
+5, Clinton stole another Rocky plug away from McCain on Tuesday with the endorsement of North Carolina Governor Mike Easley who declared that she made the fictional boxer played by Stallone, look like a "pansy."
+5, Clinton and Magic mentioned together
+5, Ditto here
+1, Jarron Collins (new Team Clinton edition) and the Utah Jazz made it to round two of the playoffs, but got killed by the Lakers in LA (Jarron's hometown). Collins played 23 seconds but didn't breach the board in any statistical categories.


TOTAL THIS WEEK: +71

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TEAM OBAMA

MOST CLEVER NAME FOR A PRIMARY EVER: +10
The Real Clear Politics blog coined today's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina as the "Basketball Primaries" (Not to ever be confused with the Basketball Diaries) and even gave Barack a reference to Michael Jordan whose basketball lineage obviously runs deep in North Carolina.

HE GOT GAME: +10
Obama scrimmaged with the UNC basketball team and national player of the year Tyler Hansbrough. Though he gets a pass picked in this video he managed at least one funny quip: "You guys are leaving the future President of the United States wide open!"

SOMEONE ELSE TRYING TO USE A PFL CANDIDATE IN THEIR CAMPAIGN: +5
"I had the courage to call traveling on Michael Jordan," Pat McCrory, Republican Governor candidate said this week while campaigning in his home state of North Carolina. Apparently he was an ACC ref back in the day.

WOLF BLITZER AGAIN!: +10
As well as praising Team Hillary's Magic Johnson, Wolf Blitzer called Obama supporter Charles Barkley one of his best sports interviews. (He also compared Obama to Gilbert Arenas. At first we scoffed, but we really can't think of a better comparison).

MOST LIKELY TO REPLACE AVERY JOHNSON: +10
A Dallas website suggested a couple candidates for the recently opened head coaches position:
Charles Barkley: He knows what's wrong with everyone's team.
Barack Obama: He got skills ... and imagine the locker-room speeches.
(They also suggested Ralph Wiggum: "Me? Fail in first round? That's unpossible.")

LITTLE KNOW FACT OF THE WEEK: +5
Obama recently won Guam by seven votes. In Guam they play a cool sport that is a combination of volleyball and soccer called rocball that Obama would probably also be good at.

OTHER PLAYS:
-5, Oregon's Mid-Willamette Valley Statesman Journal (one of the best newspaper names in the country) has some advice for Barack: "DON'T play a pickup basketball game with Greg Oden. Blazer fans need him more than they need you."


TOTAL THIS WEEK: + 45

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TEAM McCAIN

EVENT THAT WE WOULDN'T GET INTO EVEN IF HELL FROZE OVER: +25
Jets Owner and PFL godfather Woody Johnson will host John McCain's "first really big fundraiser" this week in New York City. It will be attended by "some of the biggest names in New York finance and industry," says the Washington Post's political blog The Trail. The event is expected to raise over $4 million and Wood and his wife will be holding a private "VIP" dinner at his Fifth Avenue home afterward .
+5, another mentioning of the fund raiser

I'M A COP YOU IDIOT!: +10
Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he plans to not only speak at the Republican National Convention, but also that he plans to "join his buddy on the campaign trail later this year."

GENEROUS REFERNCE TO A PFL PLAYER BY A CANDIDATE OF THE WEEK: + 5
From the Arizona Republic: "I think Gov. (Arnold) Schwarzenegger has proven to anybody's satisfaction that you can, as a Republican, have differing views and win that state [California]. I think it's a very important one, and so I will look forward to campaigning there."

OTHER PLAYS:
+5, McCain and Stallone mentioned together
-5, A bad mention: "Things have been relatively quiet on the Hollywood endorsement scene of late, since it's a given that most prominent celebrities there will be endorsing Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Just kidding. McCain's got Sylvester Stallone and that's it."

TOTAL THIS WEEK: + 45

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SCORES AFTER WEEK FOUR
1. Team Barack: 265
2. Team McCain: 190
3. Team Hillary: 171

Got an issue with the way we're sizing up the candidates? Something we missed? Got an idea for the rules? Send us your thoughts: editor.espnmag@gmail.com

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