President-Elect Barack Obama has created quite a stir this weekend. First, his staff floats the idea of Sen. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, one of the few people who would have the skills to save the department after eight years of neglect. Then, this;
"If you've got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there's no clear decisive winner. We should be creating a playoff system," he tells CBS' Steve Kroft in an interview to be broadcast Sunday.
Now, relax for a minute about, "He's got better things to worry about!" You're right, he does. But, this is what a President does. George W. Bush had better things to worry about than making sure Christian organizations got federal funding, but he still pushed it throught out his whole term. Bill Clinton had pet projects as well (healthcare, interns, national lands). Plus, if President Bush called a 35-electoral vote win in 2004 a "mandate," then what is Obama's 204-electoral vote win? I think a landslide allows the guy to make statements about college football playoffs and what puppy belongs in the White House.
If Obama can convert college football to a playoff system, it will not win him any votes (although one of my Republican friends said he'd vote for Obama in 2012 if he got a playoff started). The fact that he keeps talking about it, including apparently thinking of how the structure would work, just puts him in the same place as every college football fan who wants to end the BCS. The difference is that now the most powerful man in the world is talking about it. Let's see the Big Ten and Pac-10 try to stand up to that.
