For Those Trailing in the Polls: Remember "War Games"

You're Marianne Williamson. Or Andrew Yang. Or Tom Steyer. Or even Tim Ryan or Kirsten Gillibrand.

You're trying to muscle in on a mentality that is already established. You face funding goals to get your campaign in a position to even make it to the debate.

The debates are about issues, or they're supposed to be. But they aren't about getting your message out. You have maybe six or seven minutes to do that. That isn't enough.

Your goal is supposed to gain in national polling. Except for one thing: As of this moment, national polling is about as vital as MVP voting is in the National League--which is to say, not a bit. The season has nearly three months left. Players will get hot. They will get cold. They will put up their numbers and someone will decide.

Just like the campaign.

Comparatively speaking, you look like a minor leaguer next to The Show, as baseball people call the major leagues. You might have the talent, but you don't have the time to get to the plate. You only get so many swings. You can't score enough runs.

But the point of all this is to win Iowa, or at least to make a good showing that gives you momentum in New Hampshire and South Carolina. The Iowa caucuses meet next February. Nothing else matters.

Heck, go there, too. Rotate between the three. If you don't get traction there, it won't matter anyhow.

If I'm the campaign director for any of the above folks, here's what I say: Skip the debates. You can't join a club to which you haven't really been invited in the first place. You're an underdog. Stop playing in their ballpark, dammit.

Go to Iowa. Start campaigning full-time right now. Announce you won't bother with debating. You'll be talking to the people whose votes you actually want. Who cares if Rachel Maddow or Chuck Todd are impressed or not? Say exactly that.

The only person who will give you enough trips to the plate is you. And you have to play in the only ballpark that's necessary: Iowa.

Hang on: What if they gave debates and nobody came? Impossible. There will be debates. You call them. You make everybody else debate with you. If they refuse, fine. You're already there. You'll get your trips to the plate.

Right now, all you have is a number of All-Star Games. They are impressive. They display lots of talent. They take place in pre-arranged places.

But they count for zip. Zero. Nothing. Not where things will be decided, anyhow. That comes later, when the playoffs (primaries?) begin. The rest is positioning.

So you change the game. And don't play theirs any longer. Remember the film "War Games"? What was the phrase that the computer 'Joshua' used? "This is a strange game. The only way to win is not to play."

I doubt very much that anyone mentioned at the top of this will be president, and I'm not sure that it would be a good idea, either; with the exception of Gillibrand, they are very short on the kind of political experience I'm comfortable with. But if I were them, I would seriously consider breaking out of the mold in which the Democratic Party insists I belong, and flat out go for it.

Who already has that figured out? 45, that's who. He understands, as so we should all, that it isn't necessarily the overall numbers that matter in our system, it's where they matter and when. With the primaries echoing the general election far more than they did a few decades ago, strategic attention will gain advantages that overall impressions might not.

If that circumvents the national media, too, then so be it. Maybe they still need a learning curve as well. Will that spread a bit of disorder? Maybe. Who won with that strategy?

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark