Bob Cook

Barack Obama is the 1985 Villanova Wildcats against Hillary Clinton’s Georgetown Hoyas. That Obama would understand that reference, and Clinton would not, does a lot to explain why Obama is on his way to what once seemed an improbable upset bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The 1985 Villanova Wildcats were a middling major-conference college basketball team that sprung one of the great upset stories in NCAA tournament history, going from the back of the pack to winning the championship, running a near-perfect game (79 percent shooting, for example) to eke out a 66-64 victory over would-be dynasty Georgetown.

You know, like how Obama started off this campaign as a middling major-party senator who is springing one of the great upsets in presidential election history, going from the back of the pack to just about winning the Democratic nomination, running a near-perfect campaign to eke out a close victory over the would-be Clinton dynasty.

So why does it matter than Obama didn't need to read the preceding paragraph to know about the 1985 Villanova Wildcats? Because his ability to talk sports without sounding like an utter fool or a bandwagon-jumper has ingratiated him with the key swing demographic that he might not have won over otherwise — bitter small-town Americans who cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Wait, I didn‘t say that as well as I should have. I mean, white working-class men. “NASCAR dads.” “Hardhats.” “Bubbas.” “Reagan Democrats.” “Archie Bunker voters.” “Guys who aren’t sure they want to vote Republican but are a little lost since the last white male Democrat dropped out.”

If a group of unfamiliar guys is thrown together, odds are sports will be the conversation that breaks the ice. And that is the dynamic that Obama has used to show this voting bloc that he’s one of them. It might be working for him in basketball-crazy Indiana, which is the next state in line with a primary May 6.

“He dropped Eric Gordon’s name like he was calling from the east side of Indianapolis!” enthused Eddie White, co-host of an afternoon show on all-sports WFNI-AM in Indianapolis. White and co-host Bob Kravitz had invited both Clinton and Obama to call in. Clinton’s people weren’t so excited about the opportunity. Obama, familiar with the freshman Indiana Hoosiers guard who recently declared for the NBA draft and realizing how his high-school-championship basketball background would be eaten up in hoops-mad Indiana, called back within two days.

“It impressed our listeners,” White said. He said the collective audience response was that Obama was “so down to earth, so real,” and that “I’m going to vote for him.”

It’s not just that Obama can talk sports. It’s that other candidates, including Clinton, have botched talking sports so badly.

Special report Sorting out presidential candidates' sports ties Check out each contender in '08 race

“Sports is useful precisely because it‘s a way to demonstrate the candidate is a normal person,” said James Campbell, chair of the political science department at State University of New York at Buffalo, whose research has concluded that in rare cases — this year being one of them — do swing voters represent the line between victory and defeat.

“Certainly your credibility is at stake when you’re talking about sports, or something else.”

Like when one-time putative Republican front-runner Rudolph Giuliani, famously a Yankees fan, said he would root for the Boston Red Sox in the 2007 World Series. That is, the team that is Yankees fans' sworn enemy, but is cheered on by New Hampshire, site of the first presidential primary. Campbell didn’t buy my argument that Guiliani’s Red Sox gaffe — which I likened to the shock of learning Ronald Reagan was cheering for the Soviet Union at some point during the Cold War — effectively killed his campaign by showing him to be a hopeless panderer willing to sell out what few principles he had in a heartbeat.

But Campbell, a Red Sox fan, agreed that sports fans have a particularly sensitive “BS detector” when it comes to political candidates, and that it can affect a candidate‘s image.

Like how Clinton’s refusal to take sides over whether she was really a Chicago Cubs fan (reflecting her hometown) or a New York Yankees fan (reflecting the state that elected her to the U.S. Senate) has been pounced upon by some as a symbol of a Giuliani-ish lack of principles.

(Unfairly, perhaps, given she has long said she has been a fan of both since was a child, and that she picked the teams basically because in her male-dominated household, she had to pick somebody. You can read into that what you will, as it relates to this story and this campaign.)

MORE FROM OTHER SPORTS

Other sports Section Front

LLWS international final set: Mexico vs. Japan Little League World Series Glance   Kwan considering return for '10 Olympics Ohio college athlete killed in Pa. van crash Special feature: 2008 has been a year to remember Jeep World on NBC Championship Off-Road Racing on NBC Other sports Section Front   Add Other sports headlines to your news reader: