Winners, losers of '08 Campaign Games
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THE OLYMPICS end soon.
To help make the mental leap from international sports back to national politics, let's review how political competitors have fared in the 2008 Campaign Olympics:
WEIGHTLIFTING baggage Bronze: Barack Obama. Carried his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, for weeks, and then dropped the dumbbell.
Silver: John McCain. Held President Bush at arm's length.
Gold: Hillary Clinton. Held Bill Clinton aloft as a symbol of the good ol' days, even after he weighed more than a loose cannon.
DIVING into waterless pool Bronze: Mike Huckabee. "When we were in college we used to . . . fry squirrels in the popcorn popper."
Silver: Joe Biden, who called Obama "the first mainstream African-American (presidential candidate) who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Al Sharpton protested that he bathed daily.
Gold: John Edwards. Admitted having an affair with a New Age guru who wanted to bring out his inner Gandhi.
CYCLING backward
Bronze: Hillary. "We face a lot of evil men. And what in my background equips me to deal with evil and bad men?"
Silver: Obama. "The point I was making was not that Grandmother harbors any racial animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical white person. . . "
Gold: McCain. "Make it a hundred . . . that would be fine with me," when asked if he'd support keeping troops in Iraq for 50 years.
GYMNASTICS (verbal) Bronze: Obama. "In case you missed it this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died." He was referring to a tornado that killed 12 people.
Silver: Hillary. She spoke with a weird Southern drawl at a church service: "Ahh don't feel no-ways tired. I've come too faarrrr from where I started frum."
Gold: Bill Richardson. "I'm a Red Sox fan. . . I'm also a Yankees fan."
SYNCHRONIZED squirming Bronze: Joe Biden and an Indian-American supporter. Biden told him, "You cannot go to a
Silver: John and Cindy McCain. At a biker rally in South Dakota, McCain volunteered his wife for the "Miss Buffalo Chip" pageant, which often features topless contestants.
Gold: Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump. A video from a 2000 New York City press roast showed Giuliani in drag - kissing, and being groped by, the Donald.
SHOOTING moving targets Bronze: Huckabee. "I'm pretty sure there will be duck-hunting in heaven and I can't wait!"
Silver: Romney. "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life." Later he clarified: "I've always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. More than two times."
Gold: Dick Cheney. "I am the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend," recounting how he'd accidentally wounded a campaign donor during a quail hunt in Texas.
SHOOTING self in foot Bronze: John Kerry. He told college students: "You know, education - if you make the most of it. . . you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."
Silver: Obama. Told San Franciscans that when small-town folks "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them. . . "
Gold: Hillary. "I remember landing under sniper fire," she said, during a trip to Bosnia. When TV footage showed instead a peaceful welcoming ceremony, she admitted she'd "said some things that I knew not to be the case."
TRAMPOLINE flip-flopping Bronze: McCain. Flipped on taxes, ethanol, religious right, oil drilling. . .
Silver: Obama. Flipped on public financing, NAFTA, Iraq strategy, illegal immigration, Cuba embargo. . .
Gold: Romney. Flipped on abortion, gay rights, gun control, campaign finance, his Guatemalan gardener, and his claim that he and his father marched with Martin Luther King.
WRESTLING with reality Bronze: McCain. "I'm learning to get online myself. . ."
Silver: Obama. "I've now been in 57 states - I think one left to go."
Gold: Dennis Kucinich. Said he had a close encounter with a UFO, "a gigantic triangular craft" that hovered above him for 10 minutes, and he "heard directions" in his mind. He said he would open a campaign office in Roswell, N.M.
Todd Domke is a Boston-area Republican political analyst, public relations strategist, and author. 
