Enough of the Rocky I references. What we are really seeing now is more of a Rock II/Rocky III campaign. Let me explain ...
As you may recall from the movie, after winning a split-decision in the first match (that's right, Rocky loses the first match), Apollo Creed starts getting hate mail saying he didn't really beat Rocky in the first match.
The criticisms get under Creed's skin, as he is portrayed as a bit of an egomaniac (at the end of Rocky III, he admits to Rocky that it drove him nuts).
Eventually, Creed enlists his PR team to begin taking out newspaper ads to shame Rocky into re-matching him. One of the fliers even portrays Rocky as "The Italian Chicken."
It works (Rocky is, apparently, susceptible to peer pressure). ... Okay, it sort of works ... In this case, Apollo gets Rocky to fight him, but Rocky actually wins the belt from him. I guess that was an unforseen consequence ...
So how does this relate to politics?
Much like Apollo, the Clintons are now trying to goad Obama into a re-match, er, a debate in North Carolina. And they are following the same tack, using PR methods in an attempting to shame Obama into a debate.
Clinton surrogates Carville and Begalla have been dispatched to call Obama the "Kenyan chicken," so to speak.
The latest example has James Carville's comments on CNN:
"You can't go hide under the New York Times editorialists' skirt every time something happens and expect them to come out and do your fighting for you ..."
Will this school-yard teasing work? Quite possibly. Just yesterday, Obama caved in to the pressure, and has agreed to appear on Fox News Sunday. Will he cave into the pressure and agree to debate in NC, too?
In Rocky III, Clubber Lang (Mr. T) also goads Rocky into fighting him. Aside from coming on to Rocky's wife (are you listening Bill?), Mr. T. publicly has this to say about Rocky:
"I'm telling you and everybody here, I'm fight him anywhere, anytime, for nothing."
Sound familiar? Here's Hillary trying trying to get Obama to debate her ...
"I think the voters of North Carolina deserve a debate. I have said I'll debate anytime, anywhere."
(She might have added, "for nothing...").
The Rocky analogy lives on!
