How to turn your analogy to straw

Marco Rubio recently made an interesting analogy after the release of the CBO report.  He said that the likelihood of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) actually helping people is as great as the likelihood of the Denver Broncos coming back from their fourth-quarter deficit in the SuperBowl.

I know that there are still some who hold out hope that Obamacare will work, just like there were some in Denver this Sunday still holding out hope that the Broncos could come back and win in the fourth quarter.

Now, there is some debate on the matter, but let’s give Rubio the point for the sake of argument.  However, if we do, then Aaron Goldstein has a critical point to make:

But let’s not forget that the Broncos actually made it to the Super Bowl. The Broncos were the second best team in the NFL in 2013….

If Rubio is going to compare Obamacare to a football team he should invoke the 2008 Detroit Lions who went 0-16. Better still, the junior Senator from Florida could also speak of the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers who went 0-14. This would be a far more apt comparison because when it comes to Obamacare no one wins.

Ah, a lesson in how to turn an analogy into a straw man.  At least the Rubio analogy conceded that the ACA had something going for it (at least the Broncos had a chance to make points back earlier), but Goldstein refuses even that.  Beyond this, the point Rubio was trying to make with the analogy was one of prospects, like for the future, not retrospects, looking at the past.  Oh well, when the objective is to paint your political opponents in the worst lights, saving the actual point is beside the point.

One thought on “How to turn your analogy to straw”

  1. I added a picture for this post.

    You’re right about the Lions analogy, but I don’t think your critique is consistent with Rubio’s overall views on Obamacare: His view isn’t that this is a second-best of all the options that just won’t work out in the final game. His view is that this would never have worked out in the first place and shouldn’t even be a team. This particular analogy is directed at what he would likely (fairly or not–I think not, but that’s a different matter) consider the Obamacare dead-enders. So in that respect it’s prospective–they’re still hoping. But they’re hoping like 2008 Lions fans hoping for the playoffs. Not going to happen, never would have happened.

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