Tecmo Bowl" may have been the defining video game of our generation. It was the first sports video game to feature real-life players, paving the way for the amazing games we see today. When I was six years old, I was playing "Tecmo Bowl" with a close friend. As always, my team was the Los Angeles Raiders, that sported the single greatest video game football player of all time: Bo Jackson. Call it a glitch in the program or simply coincidence, but Bo was twice as fast as anyone else in the game and simply could not be tackled.
I was down by three with one second to go in the game so I knew I had only one play. There was no doubt in my mind what play I would run because there were only four plays to choose from in "Tecmo Bowl" and only one gave Bo the ball: the aptly named Run #1. As I snapped the ball a look of horror came over my friend's face. A gaping hole opened in the offensive line and Bo carried the ball right through it. He makes it to the 50 the 40 the 30 the 20 ZAP! The game suddenly shuts off. My friend had hit the reset button just before Bo could tiptoe into the end zone and cap my victory.
"What the poop was that?" (I don't think I knew the good curse words yet).
"That game wasn't fair. We're playing again."
As it turns out, my friend could have had an enormously successful career in the Democratic party. You see the event that triggered my memory of the infamous "Tecmo Bowl" do-over incident was the recent withdrawal of Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli from the New Jersey Senate race. The scam went down something like this:
In 1997 federal prosecutors began investigating a businessman named David Chang for funneling money and gifts to Torricelli in exchange for help with some business deals in North Korea. Eventually a total of seven people pleaded guilty to making illegal donations to Torricelli's campaign. Chang told investigators he gave the senator Italian suits, an $8,100 Rolex watch and a grandfather clock, among other things. Although a government investigation brought no charges against Torricelli, the Democrat-controlled Senate Ethics Committee severely admonished Torricelli after receiving the case file from the U.S. Attorney's office. To this day it appears that Torricelli is the only one who still maintains that he did nothing wrong.
Since Torricelli was once considered a shoo-in for reelection in this solidly Democratic state, many of the best would-be Republican challengers decided not to run earlier in the year. As a result, a political newcomer named Doug Forrester won the Republican primary. Forrester has been running an effective campaign that hammers away at his opponent's questionable integrity.
Last week Torricelli threw his opponent and the people of New Jersey a huge curveball by announcing that he was dropping out of the race. Apparently the constant nagging from the press and his opponent about his scandals did not allow him to convey his message. After their first two or three choices to replace Torricelli on the ballot turned them down, Democrats settled on former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a popular political figure in New Jersey who will end up winning the race by about eight points if his name gets on the ballot. Here is where the real outrage begins.
Democrats knew that the only way Forrester could win the race was if Torricelli's scandals made him unelectable. They did not care about putting up a slimeball candidate as long as he could win the race. Once it became obvious from polling data that Torricelli's ethical lapses were hurting him, the party pulled the plug on his candidacy, perhaps a little too late. New Jersey's election laws prohibit any changes on a ballot within 51 days of an election. The New Jersey Supreme Court, defying the constitutional provision that allows state legislatures to decide election laws, has decided to ignore the statute and allow the ballot to be changed in order to give the voters maximum choice. Of course, the voters had a choice when they voted for Torricelli in the primary despite knowing he was a bribe taker.
As was the case in Florida in 2000, Republicans are on the right side of the law and the wrong side of politics. They have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to block the ballot changes, which would disenfranchise the military voters who already mailed in their ballots from overseas. Just as they did in Florida, the Democrats have basically said they are willing to sacrifice the votes of our armed servicemen and women (who usually vote Republican) in the interest of winning an election.
There is not enough space in these pages to fully articulate the cynicism of this political maneuver. Democrats have lost all sense of fair play and have instead decided to do whatever it takes to win, even if it means pulling candidates at the last minute simply because they might lose. Nothing the U.S. Supreme Court might do could be more of a crime against democracy than this. Republicans should give up their unpopular fight in the courts (even if they have a good case) and run a campaign against the disgraceful Democratic military disenfranchisement and the bribe-taking Robert Torricelli, whether he appears on the ballot or not.
