Tom Coughlin and the Election of 2012
Posted on January 23, 2012
By all accounts, Tom Coughlin is kind of a jerk.
He is not particularly pleasant to be around. He imposes all kinds of silly rules on his players. He is a stickler for details.
He is by no means a visionary. He doesn’t have fancy passing schemes. He won’t wow you with football innovations.
The only thing that Tom Coughlin has going for him is that he wins.
Coughlin’s seems more inspired by the past than by the future. He is a traditionalist who believes in doing things the old fashioned way. He requires his players to be smart and to be disciplined. And he doesn’t put up with a lot of crap.
Coughlin is not running to win the Miss Congeniality contest (as John McCain might say). He doesn’t want to be liked by the media and the fans. He is not prone to a whole bunch of spin.
Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a Tom Coughlin in the Republican primary field?
Mitt Romney is kind of like that. He is pretty disciplined. You know he is a stickler for details. And he rubs people the wrong way. But Romney seems to want people to like him. The governor too often tries to tell people what they want to hear, and that causes him often to shift his opinions to fit the times. Coughlin doesn’t shift with the prevailing winds. He is constant. You kind of wish that Romney was more constant.
New Gingrich has no discipline. He is nothing like Tom Coughlin. He is an innovator and a big idea guy, but he is not into details very much. Where Coughlin isn’t much into rhetorical excess, Newt is all about his mouth.
Chris Christie has a little of Coughlin in him. Outside of eating too much, Christie is disciplined, and old-school. Like the Giants coach, he is tough. He calls them like he sees them.
Had he run, Mitch Daniels would have been the closest fit to Coughlin. They even kind of look alike. Daniels is disciplined. Daniels is into details. Daniels doesn’t care that much what he opponents think of him. And Daniels is old-school, just like Coughlin. He believes in spending less. He weeds out waste. He doesn’t believe in spending money he doesn’t have.
Daniels is giving the response to President Obama’s State of the Union Address. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell gave the Indiana Governor that honor because they themselves don’t want to subject themselves to ridicule, and perhaps because they want the diminutive Hoosier to jump in the race.
Perhaps Mitch Daniels will be inspired by Tom Coughlin’s success this season, and decide for the good of the country, that he is going to lace up his spikes, put on his shoulder pads and (insert another bad cliché here), and get into the game.
The Republicans could use the help.