A good loser is hard to find these days
When I was in elementary school in Oklahoma, I was on a Little League baseball team that wasn’t very good. In fact, I don’t think we won any games. But one thing we did win was the “Sportsmanship Award.” We got our picture published in some little paper — not the Daily Oklahoman, some obscure little rag that probably won the sportsmanship award in local journalism contests.
In today’s harsh times, giving such an award to such a team probably would be denounced as some liberal snowflake “give-every-child-a-trophy” lunacy. But my teammates and I didn’t see it that way. We suffered no delusional illusions that we were star athletes. If they wanted to give us clumsy screw-ups some award for showing up, having fun, trying to do our best and not being crybabies when we lost — every time — that was cool with us.
Yvette Herrell is not going to win any sportsmanship award. In fact, she’s not going to win anything this election cycle. After losing the 2nd Congressional District election to Democrat Xochitl Torres Small by about 3,500 votes, Herrell filed a lawsuit asking a court to order New Mexico State Police to impound all absentee ballots cast in Doña Ana County. And she went on right-wing loudmouth Judge Jeanine Pirro’s Fox News show claiming that Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver — a Democrat! — had “magically found 4,000 ballots that had not been counted.”
The Las Cruces Sun-News pointed out that no magic was involved. “In fact, tabulation of absentee ballots was completed on Nov. 7 in full view of reporters from several news organizations, including the Sun-News.”
Oh well. At least Herrell didn’t blame Antifa or the New Black Panther Party.
But Herrell is not alone. Spend any time on social media and you can find Republicans across the country blaming their losses on their old standby, “voter fraud,” or dishonest election officials. (Democrats are far too good to do anything like that. Their sore losers tend to blame voting machine manipulation or stupid Russian Facebook memes that nobody believes except those who already support their opponents.)
It’s as if coach Vince Lombardi’s infamous quote, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser,” has become national law.
There have been a couple of notable exceptions this year following the general election.
In Arizona, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Martha McSally didn’t try to stop the vote count and didn’t go on Fox News to claim voter fraud. When it became obvious she had lost to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, McSally showed real class. She released a video publicly congratulating Sinema “on becoming Arizona’s first female senator after a hard-fought battle. I wish her all success as she represents Arizona in the Senate.”
And here in New Mexico, GOP attorney general nominee Michael Hendricks released a gracious statement the day after he lost to Democratic incumbent Hector Balderas.
“I offer my sincerest congratulations to Mr. Balderas as he works with the newly elected governor to bring New Mexico back from the brink,” Hendricks wrote. “His is a tough job and not for the faint of heart; however, I believe that Mr. Balderas is up to the task, and will work tirelessly to make our state a safer and more prosperous place for all of us to live and raise our families. I commit to be praying fervently every day for Mr. Balderas and our newly elected government for wisdom and strength for the challenges ahead. I ask all New Mexicans to make the same commitment.”
Newcomer Hendricks already had impressed me earlier in the campaign when he was the only one on the Republican ticket to call for state Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, to step down after her arrest — and her terrible police video performance — for drunken driving. Had more Republicans joined him, the GOP might not have lost Youngblood’s House seat. The poor guy didn’t get many votes, but he sure showed character.
The sad thing is that not too long ago, concession statements like those of Hendricks and McSally were the norm. Virtually any politician who lost a race would congratulate the winner and wish for his or her success in governing.
As a past recipient of a sportsmanship award, I’m calling for a return to “the people have spoken” and cool it with the idiotic conspiracy talk.