After a game in which Bo Jackson had hit a particularly long home run, a reporter asked Bo for his thoughts on the tape-measure blast."I don't measure them," replied Bo. "Once they get over the fence, they can go to East Hell for all I care."
Bo knew his home runs counted the same whether they traveled 350 or 550 feet. Let's keep his words in mind when we see polls claiming Barack Obama is ahead by double digits in this or that swing state.
Don't take it from me. Take it from Barack:
On a conference call with his campaign staff just now, Barack Obama delivered the same message he's been telling donors: Don't get cocky.Obama got on the staff call with campaign manager David Plouffe to praise his staff, but also to tell them not to become overconfident, because — in my source's paraphrase — "too many people are counting on us not to screw this up.'
Eighteen days, he reminded them, is a long time, and he told them to "run scared," run as though they were 10 points down, and "remember New Hampshire."
Be confident Obama's got this. But don't get complacent because someone's predicting a tape-measure shot.