Friday Funday: Big Shoes And Big Thanks

As we're fairly sure you heard earlier this week, Tom Osborne, the University of Nebraska's Athletic Director - and legendary former head football coach -  announced his official retirement date as January 1, 2013. Not unexpectedly, sports media writers and broadcasters from all over the country heaped praise on Dr. Osborne, most of it well deserved.

Many of those praising the College Football Hall of Fame coach and talented athletic director expressed sentiments we've also shared for years: That when AD Osborne chose to move on, the proverbial shoes in his position were going to be incredibly difficult to fill. That time has apparently come, though we hope not without one more set of thank yous, and one last story about the legacy of Tom Osborne at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Our entire staff has - collectively, as well as individually - had differing relationships with Mr. Osborne over the years. Paul has been drawing a prediction cartoon of the Husker football team since not too many years after Coach Osborne took the reins of the team. In fact, without Tom Osborne, it's doubtful that Husker fans would have shown the level of devotion that has warranted many, many years of Paul's HuskerNutz cartoons and books.

Our editor, Amy's family has also had multiple levels of business relationships with the Huskers over the years, thanks in part to Tom Osborne. Countless numbers of Nebraskans have been fed very well thanks to those relationships.

Our webmaster Shawn has had his own relationship with Mr. Osborne over the years, including his time as the Executive Producer of the Husker Sports Radio Network. Shawn has produced and worked with countless hours of Husker sports media programs, including more than a few with Coach Osborne himself.

It's with these relationships firmly in mind that we hope you understand what the real legacy of Tom Osborne is.

Tom Osborne has always been far more than someone just focused on college athletics. For all the years we've known him, Tom Osborne has been a teacher, someone concerned with teaching people to become better than they are. Even when he was in Congress, Rep. Osborne would surprise the occasional staffer by taking time to listen, and talk with them when most other Congresspersons would walk on by.

The most important legacy Tom Osborne will leave at the University of Nebraska is what he's done for - as sports media people often call it - "the academic side of the house." The move to the Big 10 was always less about the athletic money and opportunities for students, and more about the academic grants and educational opportunities in the Big 10, something Osborne knew when he made his decsion.

Having the most academic All Americans - college athletic superstars who also achieved top performance in the classroom - in college sports? That's Osborne's legacy too.

What has always kept Nebraska athletics a step above virtually every other college in the nation has been the understanding that's at the core of Dr. Tom Osborne - that the "student" part of "student athlete" is equal, and many times more important, than the "athlete" part of "student athlete".

We hope whoever tries to fill his shoes always keeps that idea in mind.

Thanks, Tom, for all you've done for Nebraska. Enjoy the fishing next spring. You've more than earned an extended vacation.

Real Monsters At The Voting Booth

Over the last day or two, increasingly positive and legitimately confirmed poll numbers have been rolling in from virtually every legitimate pollster and poll aggregator about all kinds of political contests across America. We even noted it yesterday. While we emotionally embrace this numerical reflection of what we're seeing in our various locations around the country, the fact is, our staff has been feeling a bit like actors in a horror movie - waiting for the other shoe to drop, as the ugly monster rears its head again.

That monster, in case you've forgotten, was the disastrous election of 2000, in the very county where we now have our South Florida location. After the Supreme Court stopped the ballot counting in Florida, and declared George W. Bush the winner, ballots were still recounted. As the Federal Election Commission's final tally has proven for years now, Al Gore actually won the most votes of most Americans in the 2000 election.

That miscarriage of justice lead to some of the worst economic, military, and social disasters in our nation's history. It also gave those on the right, from the Karl Rove school of politics, a warped kind of encouragement. Because they got away with it in 2000, the right-wing extremists now seem to believe that anything is acceptable, in the service of winning - up to and including gaming the spirit of American elections, if not election laws.

Sadly, a similar kind of Rovian monster is exactly the one right wing extremists are attempting to revive in the voting booth again this year, through tactics like voter suppression and voter intimidation.

Even though multiple studies have proven voter impersonation and associated fraud is virtually non-existent, forces from the extreme political right have continued to desperately push voter ID laws to prevent voter impersonation. While many voter ID laws have already been struck down this year, a major battle in Pennsylvania - a very important battleground state - is continuing today. The fact is, voter ID laws only really serve to suppress the votes of minority, urban, and young voters, along with a specific subset of older voters. From college students to snowbirds, thanks to the efforts of heavily biased right-wing partisans, millions of legitimately registered and legal American citizens may not be able to vote this fall - which election law experts say may put any final election tally in jeopardy this year.

It gets worse.

Some governors, like Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott, have attempted mass voter purges, trying to push thousands of legitimate voters off the voter rolls. Like the voter ID laws, these voter purges have fallen significantly more on groups like minorities, college students, and snowbirds - all groups that tend to vote heavily Democratic. Even today, Gov. Scott is once again attempting to pursue yet another voter purge, 40 days away from the election, while he and the state of Florida are being investigated for fraudulent actions on this matter by the Justice Department.

Finally, there is the ugliest anti-voting tactic, voter intimidation. An extremist right-wing group called 'True The Vote' has been training millions of Americans in the tactics of voter intimidation and voter challenges, for use on voting day. Once again, these same monsters are targeting areas that are occupied primarily by minorities and college kids.

The goal for all these tactics is simple. If the Republican Party can't win the election with better candidates, they will try to steal it - just as they did in 2000.

Until the votes have all been counted, the voting results are in - and the counting machines have been proven not to be rigged - we simply do not trust that those on the extreme political right will not attempt to do everything they can, up to and including stealing the election from the American people.

This monster ain't over by a long shot, folks.

Epistemic Closure And The Big Hunt

We'd be willing to bet all the money in our wallets right right now, against all the money in your wallet right now, that there isn't a single one of our readers in the United States that's avoided all political advertising so far this campaign season.

The effects of almost totally unregulated campaign funds, as well as multiple media bubbles that have become more closed around themselves than ever before, have created a political environment where discovering a truly undecided voter is about as likely as hunting for a dodo bird, or a successful snipe hunt.

For all the talk of convincing voters, the fact of the matter is, we're less than six weeks from election day - and every reliable poll, including those with "House leans" to the right or the left - has Mitt Romney trailing President Obama. In a growing number of Senate and House races, the tale of the polls reads the same to everyone - the decisions of most people have already been made, and they're generally not in favor of the Republican in the race. Even white working class voters in the Midwest and NASCAR fans now prefer Obama over Romney by still growing measurements.

With all these signs pointing in the same direction, the latest campaign target of Mitt Romney and the Republicans hasn't become a specific voting block, or a policy of President Obama's. It's become the polls themselves.

Many on the right, including a growing chorus of voices from within the Romney campaign, are simply in denial. They claim the polls have been horribly skewed to the left, and that the samples pollsters are recording aren't an accurate reflection of those who will vote in just over 40 days.

The problem with the denials from the right is that unlike legitimate poll aggregators - such as Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.com or Real Clear Politics - and virtually every legitimate pollster, the whiners on the right have no scientific data to back up their claims. That distain for science is not uncommon these days on the political right - but it doesn't change the facts that all the polls are reporting.

As Nate pointed out this week, even in heavily "red" states - states where it's almost mathematically impossible for President Obama to win - the polls are marking a noticeable shift to the left. Further, as Steve Benen notes, pollsters and poll aggregators have no reason to put out flawed results. In fact, they'd hurt their own business if they did so.

Those facts haven't changed the level of denial from those on the right.

Their wild goose chase for some vague substance to support their paranoid theory has actually led to a new website, run by conservative partisans. The site is taking the polling data from other pollsters and "reweighting" that data, until - surprise, surprise - Mitt Romney wins most of the polls he was losing in before this creative math kicked in.

When you hear political pundits use the phrase "Epistemic Closure", this kind of insane denial is what they're talking about. The right wing has not only created their own media on cable TV, radio, and the internet, but they've closed their collective minds to any facts that don't agree with what they want to hear.

The facts do say there are an incredibly small number of undecided voters out there. The chances of certain very biased political groups being able to accurately target just those people though, are slim to none.

The undecided voters could be right behind the campaign wonks, clear as day - but we doubt those partisans with closed minds will find them before Election Day.