That Which Does not Kill You

Taking a break from meta-politics. Let's talk about football. Well, football strategy.

Source: bostonglobe.com

In my pool of mostly Pats fans, I can count on the others to pick the Pats week after week out of loyalty. Last night I outsmarted myself with game theory tactics to try to take advantage of that perceived weakness of the opposition. They would pick the Pats whether or not the Pats were more likely to win, so if I picked against my own interests, I might improve my chances in the pool. Unfortunately, my focus on the vulnerabilities of the pool participants made me forgot about the strength of the Pats - they find a way to win games, especially with home field advantage, and find new ways to win. This is the dynamic of Belichick, Billy Bean and all the rest. You employ new game strategy and by the time opponents catch on and employ it themselves, you are on to the next strategy. Success comes only with the willingness to take chances  and to recognize its a matter of luck + skill. When a tactic fails, you look foolish to the uninitiated. So what, who cares?

Warriors discusses tactical examples - punching out the ball on defense, use of massive tight ends and the short low pass to agile receivers. Belichick era punters are left-footed, producing an unsettling reverse spin on the ball for the punt receiver. One of the most effective adaptations is that Pats players take on multiple roles more than other teams. So they can fill gaps in this game with frequent injuries and confuse other teams with different looks on offense and defense. But throughout this era, the offense has been built around Tom Brady's arm and other skills which come with the inability to turn a broken pass play into much of a run. Using a different quarterback or different role for Brady was limited to trick plays -- Brady calls the signals but the ball is snapped to a different player, Amendola pass to Brady, or even the Flutie drop kick. Even with Belichick's willingness to take big risks, mixing up the quarterbacks during a game to confuse the opposition was just too risky.

Until now. Imagine the new offense when Brady returns if Garoppolo recovers from his injury. Three battle tested quarterbacks to choose from. How does an opposing team prepare for the possibility that Garoppolo or Brissett may be inserted at any time? If Brissett suddenly goes in, does that mean it may be a pass, but not a long bomb? Is it a quarterback draw? Or has Brissett been practicing the long bomb all week and we need to anticipate that? If Garoppolo goes in for Brady, what in the world does that mean now? Will he run? Short pass? The mind boggles.

What does this say about some other teams willing to sign extravagant multi-year contracts, but still struggle to find one good enough quarterback. Like the Texans.

The extreme penalty of the 4-game Brady suspension together with the bad luck of the Garoppolo injury, forced playing time for both Brissett and Garoppolo. The Gift from Goodell, forced Belichick to build and have the team execute around an offense with both backup QBs that will be a threat for the remainder of the season. Thank you Roger. All is forgiven.

Arthur Ashe - Developing a Winning Strategy

For today's sports analogy, we need to look back to Arthur Ashe's amazing performance in the 1975 Wimbledon championship, but first let's recap key takeaways from recent sports posts.
-Shirley Babashoff -how the US press, even with a tendency to favor the US team in any Olympics, got the underlying story so wrong despite the manly appearance and deep voices of the teenage East German swimmers. This points to the difficulty drawing inferences from the data when the most important data is hidden from view.

Making accusations of cheating seems to require a higher bar than calling a player a poor sport. Based on the evidence, Shirley appeared to be a bad sport - she did not have incontrovertible proof that the East Germans had been dieting on performance-enhancing cocktails - her inferences were based only on appearances, however compelling. Besides, the explanation that the East Germans had worked harder was in keeping with the 1970s trends and tone of some Olympic coverage.  That is , the East Germans women's program had been raised to the level of a men's program - tougher workouts, intensive weight training. In keeping with the popularity of behaviorism at the time, perhaps women only needed to work as hard as men to equal men in performance. Except that is not what was happening and the American female competitors suffered for it - not physically as the drugged up East Germans later suffered , but by the lack of recognition for their amazing athletic accomplishments.
Golden State/NE Patriots/Denver Broncos -how a team can improve its competitive chances by changing the style of game that they are playing, forcing their opponent to find a way to respond. Build a different type of offense while opponents are building their defense to play well against all teams, not just your team, or build a different type of much stronger defense, even at the expense of your offense.

The Arthur Ashe/Jimmy Connors match-up in the 1975 Wimbledon final is well known. Ashe, turning 32, was a star of the past who had never won Wimbledon, but made it to the final. Connors, the 22 year old brash upstart had reached the final with his power game and was heavily favored to win.  On the day of the final, Ashe got Connors a little off his game by wearing his US Davis Cup team jacket, a team that Connors had snubbed. Ashe played a completely different style in the final, slicing serves, mixing drop shots, lobs and carefully placed shots to the backhand to limit Connors' ability to maximize his power advantage. Even though Ashe was not playing his strongest style of game, he was able to change the dynamic of play enough to put Connors in a weakened position without enough time to keep his wits about him and adjust his own game. Connors relative inexperience surely played a part in the outcome.

For the current presidential election, the popular press keeps reminding us:
-The general election is not like the primaries. When the primaries are over, each of the winning candidates need to pivot to the general by changing their campaign tactics to move to the center of the political spectrum while holding on to the base in their own party

But as some pundits have pointed out, the formula for success in the Republican primaries has changed in recent decades to be more and more a matter of policy-free debate with the vacuum filled in with personal attack against opponents. Jeb Bush chided Donald Trump that "you can't bully your way to the presidency" which was a statement that sounded false as soon as he uttered it.

Can Trump bully his way to the presidency? Maybe.
If not, does he have to change his style? To what?
Can Hillary Clinton win the general election on the issues? Is there a way to defend herself against Trump's attacks? Does she need to attack very hard right now? In what way? What kinds of attacks would stick?

Preliminary signs suggest that Trump's bullying method with an ever so slight softening will continue in the months ahead and could even be successful, especially if Bernie supporters are bitter and new voter ID rules along with poll closures and limits on absentee ballots are a factor. Perhaps all he needs to do is keep Clinton on the defensive. He will have plenty of help from Republicans who want to get on board.

Clinton's current approach is not promising. There are no apparent knock out punches in the offing. The recent pivot to indicate that Bill will have a policy role on the economy is a bad move tactically - at just the time that Clinton needs to exhibit strength, Trump is saying what a bad guy Bill Clinton is. By drawing on her relationship with Bill, Hillary is offering up the possibility that she can't do it alone, being president, and needs her husband's help. At the same time this is a statement that maybe it is valid and somehow relevant for Trump to criticize Bill as a campaign tactic.

Shirley Babashoff and More Luck + More Skill

The current news of the Russian doping scandal at the Sochi Winter Olympics made me think back to Shirley Babashoff at the 1976 Olympics. Young Shirley had been swimming up a storm in pre-Olympic events breaking world records and generally exuding a youthful exuberance and spontaneity. She was a great catch for reporters looking for quotes. The East German swimmers excelled in the pre-Olympic events as well, setting up a showdown at the Olympics.
Shirley did not win any individual gold medals, winning just the one gold medal in the relay. She only lost to East Germans who set world records.
Only years later was the massive use of hormones steroids by the East German team confirmed.
All of the reasons for suspicion were there.
The East Germans had improved dramatically from 1972 to 1976, actually from 1972 to 1973.

-East Germany, with a much smaller population than West Germany, won every swimming gold medal, but for the one relay
-Teenage girls with deep voices who looked more like men
-Races were being won by large margins
-Marked improvement since the prior Olympics
-Nearly uniform body types, unlike the variety on other teams

Yet when Shirley complained about overhearing voices in the locker room that sounded like men, looking up, and realizing these were the East German women, she was  branded a poor sport in the press.
All of the ingredients for a dramatic pro-American story based on the truth were there, yet the press mostly got it wrong. We have all heard of the "big lie", that is, a lie that is so outrageous that belief is prompted by the presumed improbability of anyone telling such a big lie and expecting to get away with it. Here we had the " big truth", that is, a fact that is so outrageous that special caution is considered necessary before granting it credibility. Even that summer, some news articles presented an evenhanded treatment, quoting the likes of Willye White who weight trained for five years straight and stated flatly that women never look like the East Germans unless they are using chemicals. Rod Strachan, the swimmer, was blunt, saying "If you look at the East Germans, they don't look exactly like girls. They're quite a bit bigger than most of the men on the American team. They could go out for football at U.S.C."

The press was not prepared for the newness of the story of widespread use of performance enhancing substances in 1976. It did not fit their existing model for the Olympics. Any challenge to the model needed to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to be believed.

Many in the press failed again in 1998 at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Throughout the summer, there were many Presidential approval polls that fluctuated slightly. The fluctuations may have been random noise, but the more Kenneth Starr appeared to be persecuting President Clinton the higher his approval rating rose toward 70% approval. Yet many in the press (Cokie Roberts, for one) viewed a precipitous drop in the approval ratings as only a matter of time.  Like Nixon, a president can only withstand so much scandal before he needs to resign for the good of the country and public approval will drop in lockstep.

Ironically, the history of the Trump approval ratings throughout 2015 and into 2016 with a press in denial are the mirror image of the Clinton approval ratings experience in 1998. For Nate Silver, the working model for Trump was that this was just like Giuliani or Gingrich in 20xx with high approval ratings prior to actual primary voting. Anything can happen before the primaries, so ignore all of those polls. The press went along with this because just like the 1976 Olympics or the 1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal, if something new is happening the press can not see it.
 
What is new about Donald Trump?
For one thing, some of Trump's supposed missteps, comments that were supposed to get him into big trouble with the Republican primary voters, were flatly true statements. As Jeb Bush repeatedly said that his brother "kept us safe", Trump said no he did not, which was a plain fact. Sure he could make excuses and say why he could not keep us safe and prevent the 9/11 attacks, but in political terms, it works better if you preempt all of that defensive discussion and just claim "he kept us safe". Trump's challenge to that becomes refreshing. Then there was the statement about McCain and prefering people who do not get shot down. Sure that is deeply offensive, but in a roundabout way, that is a challenge to the "our heroes/your traitors" mentality of the Republican campaign tactics where John Kerry could be portrayed as a liar about his heroic service in Vietnam while George Bush got a free pass for all his free passes home while in the National Guard.

The problem is a press that plays a role reporting the facts, the who, what, when, where, and why with limited ability to interpret new phenomena. Interpretation is left to opinion writers whose expertise is taking facts and forcing them through their worldview. Those opinions are thrashed about by commenters and other opinion writers, then it is on to the next story. New patterns in the data, changes in existing models used to explain political and social phenomena, can be easily missed.

In the case of Donald Trump, reporters who do not correctly interpret and understand his appeal to voters will be scratching their heads in November if he wins.  Ironically, those same pundits who misunderstood his appeal from the beginning will likely look back and come up with the wrong explanations for his victory.

Trump may lose if the Clinton campaign figures out why he has been successful,  how to beat him at this game, and executes on an effective strategy unlike any seen from Democrats in presidential politics. Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, blogs about Trump's success and the reasons for it, including his persuasive skills and appeals to the irrational in voters. While his arguments are well outside the mainstream, it is refreshing to hear other than the usual arguments being considered.

So here we are.

1. Shirley Babashoff was cheated out of four gold medals in 1976, receiving the silver. Then she was cheated again when portrayed as a spoilsport in the press. Her book Making Waves: My Journey to Winning Olympic Gold and Defeating the East German Doping Program will be released July. Those East Germans still have those gold medals. Last I checked, she had never heard back from those reporters who got the story wrong - maybe because they could not bear that while she was doing her job so well she was also doing their job better than they were. Of course, it wasn't only Shirley Babashoff, but all of the other swimmers who were cheated.

2. The Clinton approval ratings sustained at such high levels in 1998 were explained by pundits as the American people being so happy about the economy. It couldn't be that a large majority thought that impeaching the president in these circumstances was unfair and maybe even damaging to democratic institutions.

3. Donald Trump's success and what does it mean for November?

It's (a) the process and (b) the man.

(a) Process: The increasingly substance-free primary process on the Republican side cleared the path for Mr. Trump.
(b) the man:
Let's start with George Lakoff and add only a sprinkle of Scott Adams. From Scott Adams we accept that people can be irrational in many ways and yes, Trump has skills at persuasion associated with his blanket statements, voice and demeanor.
From George Lakoff:
March 16, 2016 post

Some of Lakoff's observations have been out there in the press, but not always systematically as a cohesive model. Lakoff's model is basic, but there is more to the story which next week's post will explore.

Luck + Skill

In the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary polls, between Aug. 25, 2011 and Feb. 8, 2012,
Romney was only in the lead for short stints as Perry, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum each led, sometimes by large margins. Romney led continually before and after those dates, so leads by the other candidates were just a flirtation, not a yearning.  Using this as a partially defined model, the predictions for 2016 generally assumed that Trump support would fall as he "misspoke" or voters got to know him better just as these other candidates had fallen in 2012. An alternative (better) interpretation of 2012 would be that in 2016 a combination of (1) a candidate with just the right kind of outsider appeal and persuasive skills to win Republican primaries,  (2) a weak enough establishment candidate (Mr. Low-Tea) and (3) an otherwise weak field, could result in the major upset that has occurred in Trump. Is that really a long shot or a failure of interpretation of how the system of Republican primaries has evolved in recent cycles? The fact that the "reasonable" candidates, i.e. the favorites of Democrats, like Huntsman and Kasich never get off the ground should tell us something. The better sports analogies might be the Golden State Warriors with Stephen Curry and the 3-point shot or the New England Patriots unorthodox team building strategies. That is, we need to understand what is happening to the model. Are there any random variables that matter much here or did Trump just go out and execute on a winning strategy that no one could quite see beforehand?

The Warriors

Interesting article today in Wall Street Journal about Golden State Warriors (subscription required) decision to build their team around the 3 point shot which the article calls taking advantage of a "market inefficiency" and an unusual idea "embraced by the data loving executives" and "The result is a basketball style no one has yet figured out how to defeat."
I am no expert on football, but this reminds me of watching the early Belichick era in New England Patriots football, noticing differences in game strategy between the Patriots and other teams. In the early 2000s the Patriot defenders would try to punch the football out of the grip of the ball carrier instead of the traditional focus on immediate tackling to minimize yardage gains. The Pats seemed do this  long before the other teams caught on. In football, the conservative play is always to go for the consistent short term advantage at high probability rather than take chances that could result in major loss. The natural human inclination is to avoid big losses due to the pain, rather than take chances with low probability of huge gain. Turning over the ball with the momentum shift prevents the other team from scoring on that series and your team gets a chance to score, possibly a touchdown on that turnover. This punching out the football tactic eventually became a staple of the game we watch today.
Instead of building an offense around quarterback Tom Brady of tall, agile wide receivers, the Pats went on to build around a combination including shorter, quick guys (Wes Welker, Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola)  who could dive sideways and low for the reception -- hard to defend, plus tall, massive tight ends (Gronk and others) who could outjump their defenders with their height, make the catch, and, with their girth, barrel down the field for extra yards. By building a different offense, that is, by playing a different game, you do not need to compete with other teams as much for talent. You are drafting different talent. Of course, there were many other reasons for the Patriots success, but playing a different game was a constant, including taking chances where other teams would not.

All this changed in 2015. The Denver Broncos started winning games and improbably remained undefeated through 7 games. Smart analysts decided this would not continue throughout the season. The offense was struggling to score touchdowns and it was not even clear who should be the starting quarterback. With Manning starting QB in the playoffs, the Broncos were the underdogs in both the AFC title game against the Pats and the Super Bowl with the Panthers. Both opponents were favored against the Broncos, but the Broncos defense was able to stymie the offense and the Broncos beat both opponents.

For the New England Patriots, the winning tactics of the past came up short. The Broncos defense overwhelmed the Patriots passing game by finding a key weakness in the inability to protect the quarterback which eliminated of the advantages of Tom Brady and the carefully selected receivers.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. As a businessman, it sometimes pays to be apolitical, so he had contributed to both Democrats and Republicans as many in business do, to gain access to whoever wins elections. But in business he was more willing than most to try out different initiatives in addition to the hotels and casinos - Trump steaks, Trump University, sports teams, Miss Universe - actually the list goes on and on.  He could not help but notice that in the Republican Presidential races in 2008 and especially in 2012, there seemed to be a yearning for a different kind of candidate. The formula for George W. Bush in 2000 seemed to be select a candidate whose primary qualification was a family resemblance to the previous President Bush, along with the ability to rely on strong Presidential advisers (back to the Ford administration), and be willing to employ hardball tactics against opponents. Yet, in 2008 and 2012, there was a rotation of sorts among Republican hopefuls who caught the popular imagination early on, but imploded upon further media scrutiny, only to be replaced in the end by a more "establishment" candidate. That was supposed to be the scene in 2015-2016 according to the pundits. But to Trump,  the winning formula consisted of an over-the-top personality, willingness and skills to capitalize on popular fears, anger and resentment, along with the ability to disarm the establishment choice of a weak candidate. How tempting to run for the Republican nomination. So long as Jeb Bush remained in the race, Trump continued to look good in contrast with the weak candidate who was being foisted on the Party by the powers that be. Romney, the failed candidate in 2012, injecting himself into the discussion only brought to the foreground the "establishment" efforts to defeat the more independent candidate Trump and continued to help the Trump cause. Only now, with the Republican field diminished and no strong establishment candidate to play against (given that Cruz is really anti-establishment), do Trump's own weaknesses as a candidate come to the fore.

One thing is clear.  The key ingredient of recent Republican campaigns in contrast with Democratic campaigns has been to avoid directly addressing issues and realistic policy options in favor of sweeping promises of simplistic solutions along with appeals to fear and anger.  Trump saw the opening to outdo the Republican candidates at their own game and took advantage of it. This was a key element of the decision to run as a Republican. There will be no going back in future Presidential races unless the Republican Party decides to change the rules of the game, that is, how their candidate is chosen, or the Republican candidates change the way they play the game.