All That and a Bag of Mail

It’s Friday, time for the mailbag. 

Our beaver pelt trader of the week is Donald Trump, who managed to win the final Republican debate before the elections by not even appearing. 

Okay, we’ve got a ton of mailbag questions lined up so here we go. 

AJ writes:

“Since there are still about a thousand people in the GOP race, it seems like the most efficient way to get a nominee would be to put them in the Hunger Games. What would happen in this scenario? What alliances would be formed, who would be killed first and who would ultimately win?”

Let’s limit the field to the seven contenders on the stage last night and Donald Trump. So who wins between: Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Carson, Kasich, Christie, and Rand?

Your winner is either Rand Paul or Marco Rubio.  

Cruz is, without a doubt, the biggest pussy on the stage and everyone hates him. This means Cruz would get killed before anyone even got to the woods. Carson would then get killed tried to stitch up Cruz’s decapitated head.

So right off the bat you’re down to five.  

Christie is fat, which in theory would mean he could survive the longest without food, but in practicality would mean he’d get killed by the special bees when they dangled a hive of honey off a low-hanging branch. 

So that leaves us with Rubio, Paul, Bush, and Trump. 

At this point Trump would attempt to go Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase and try to buy the other guys off. I think Rand would agree to discuss an alliance and then Trump would attempt to kill Rand, violating the truce agreement, only Rand would win a fight with Trump because he’s twenty years younger and I think Trump is pretty out of shape. That leaves us with Rubio, Paul, and Jeb Bush.

Jeb is too big of a target, he’s like the jolly green giant of the competition and he gets wiped out with a long range sniper shot.

So then Rubio and Paul meet for a hand to hand combat finale.

I think Rubio is stronger than Paul and he gets him in a death chokehold and wins the competition.  

So that’s how the Republican primary hunger games ends.

(Edit, evidently I forgot about Kasich here, which is perfect. He’d be hiding in the woods, the contest would end, and he’d come walking out like, “Guys, did you know I balanced the budget in 1994?”) 

Now let’s flip to serious political analysis:

Donald Trump is going to win Iowa — which will kill Ted Cruz’s campaign and Trump’s also going to then win New Hampshire. The battle in New Hampshire, I think, will come down to Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush as the rival to challenge Trump. Whichever of these guys can become the primary challenger to Trump heads to South Carolina and Nevada and then the SEC primary fighting with Trump for the nomination. 

Meanwhile, Trump needs Cruz to drop out of the race. If that happens then Trump locks up the nomination. So I think Trump will agree behind closed doors to take Cruz as his running mate if Cruz drops out. If that happens then Cruz’s supporters — who are mostly anti-establishment — come over to Trump and Donald takes the nomination. 

But if Cruz, who is an asshole, refuses to relent on the presidential race, then we end up in a head-to-head battle between Trump and both Rubio and Bush can potentially stay in because we’re in a four way race. At some point the party would pressure either Bush or Rubio to drop out and support the other candidate, throwing all the muscle of the Republican establishment behind one guy.

I believe there are three people who can get the nomination now — Trump and Rubio or Bush.  

Assuming Hillary gets the nomination and isn’t charged with any crimes in this email mess, then the only Republican ticket that can beat Hillary and whomever she picks as her running mate, is Bush-Kasich or Rubio-Kasich. 

There you go, tell me who is better at analyzing the Republican Hunger Games and the actual primary than me. The answer: no one. 

I need my own political show on TV too. 

Anonymous writes:

“This is probably more suited for the anonymous mailbag but the weekend is here and I need your answer as quickly as possible. This girl told me that her and her friend were coming in town this weekend and that I needed to clear my schedule. Now, these girls and I have always been friends but nothing more than that so this was a strange, out of the blue message. Also, it was on social media so everyone could see. Am I about to have a shot at the title belt? Can a man truly ride the tricycle? It sounds like it would be tough to handle and any man could buckle under the pressure of such a thing. Do I go for it? Do I just try to get one? Do I go for the incredible move of going for one Friday night and the other on Saturday night? Or do I go all in with the possibility of crashing and burning? What would Clay Travis do? WWCTD…..Let’s pray that I am just not totally in the friend zone.”

So a girl and her friend asks you — on social media, no less — to clear your schedule and come hang out with them when they come into a city they don’t live in and you immediately think — this means she wants a threesome with me?

God bless men and the way their minds work.

If one of these girls is willing to hook up with you, I’d advise you to take the boob in your hand instead of risking a threesome.

If, however, you want to press your luck and find yourself near a bed with both girls and all three of you are drunk, you can roll the dice on the threesome.

Good luck.

(But they don’t want to have a threesome with you).

Jordan writes:

“Since you’re an expert on cable cutting analysis, political debates, and hating on ESPN, I thought I’d direct you a question that involves all the above.

I am a typical millennial cable cutter who has been watching the presidential debates via free live streaming from FoxNews, CNN, etc. It occurred to me last night that a debate is the closest thing to a live sporting event those channels will ever have – of course you could DVR it, but you’d miss out on live tweeting, etc.

As such, I then (without any research) figured these debates have to be the highest rated events that these cable news networks have. If this is remotely close to being right, why are they free live streaming and ESPN not? Why can cable news stream their highest rated events and ESPN not stream the National Championship or a game of the week, etc. to at least get sponsors extra eyes?”

The answer is because the news channels don’t have to pay for the debate content. It’s free. And every news station gets their own debate too, so there’s debate socialism. ESPN pays billions and billions of dollars a year for its highest rated content and that content is offered exclusively.

There’s also a public policy argument that the news channels are obligated to allow everyone to watch the debates for free. Since a democracy requires an enlightened electorate, it would suck if someone couldn’t watch the debates because they didn’t have cable. Whereas if you miss the college football playoff, the country doesn’t really lose out. 

Imagine, by the way, if the cable channels sold off exclusivity to news events at an auction every year like sporting events are sold. For instance: Fox News bought all political events for one year and CNN got natural disasters and then MSNBC got murders and terror attacks.

What would these news events sell for from a ratings perspective?

Do you put all your money on natural disasters and hope for a ton of them? What if natural disasters have a bad year? Like there are no tornadoes or hurricanes or major flooding? Would news bosses get fired for making poor bids or would they argue that it was just bad year?

Imagine if you hit it perfect and stole murders and terror attacks at the draft in 1994, when OJ murdered Nicole, and then also got terror attacks for almost no cost in 2001. The only stock to go up the week of 9/11 would have been your news outlet. 

Anyway, that’s your answer — you can’t monetize actual news via exclusivity. 

Mike writes:

“We’ve all been following Kayne and his love of assplay. Given where social media is today, how long before this same scenario plays out with an SEC coach? Imagine if Petrino’s girlfriend had felt jilted and took to Twitter, or posted pictures of the coach on Instagram. Imagine Mike Price’s escorts/strippers cashing in on their fifteen minutes of fame. Best of all, Dubose’s secretary at Alabama back in the 90s! What’s the over/under on the number of years until this really happens?”

When the Kanye feud went public I immediately texted friends that there would be an SEC coach sex tape in the next five years. 

I think it’s inevitable.

Can you imagine Hugh Freeze hopping on Twitter to say that he doesn’t actually like assplay?

I’m surprised we haven’t had politician sex tapes go public already too. (John Edwards was close). HOW IN THE WORLD IS THERE NOT A DONALD TRUMP SEX TAPE? That dude has to have VHS sex tapes. How have none of these gone public?

Can you imagine if Bill Clinton was 30 years old right now instead of 70? What about if JFK was alive now? Hell, right now there are probably three or four future American presidents between the ages of 18 and 34. Is there any doubt that the vast majority of them have had naked photos taken? Every millenial future president — pray for us all — is naked in the cloud somewhere right now.   

But back to the SEC, I’m surprised every school doesn’t have an elite counterintelligence unit trying to trap opposing coaches in compromising situations. Would you really put this past Nick Saban and the process to have J. Edgar Hoover like secret files on every major coach in college football? Hell, Butch Jones can’t beat Florida, what if he deployed 14 gorgeous hookers to simultaneously knock on every Florida Gator head coaches door at 2:30 am the night before the 2016 game? Gotta be a competitive advantage, right?

Just win baby.

Jordan writes:

“Clay, my 14 yr old son was talking the other day and said “these”, but it sounded like he said “Deez”. My 16 yr old daughter, without hesitation, responds “Nuts”. For the record I’ve never said that term in front of them (or not in front of them for that matter). Would you say that’s a parenting win or fail?”

Total parenting win. 

I’ve got three young sons, if they’re 14 years old and someone says deez and they don’t immediately respond with nuts, I’ve failed as a parent.  

Kyle writes:

“Hey Clay,

As you know, my beloved St. Louis Rams just bolted to the coast quicker than Kramer did on Seinfeld. They left myself, and all St. Louisans for that matter, sifting through the tears fallen in our Bud Lights and Toasted Ravioli’s. My question is simple:

Who do we root for now?

If you were a diehard “St. Louis” Rams fan such as myself, do you:

Boycott the NFL altogether? Root for the Chiefs? Colts? Titans? Bears? Or simply root for Stan Kroenke to die on the shitter like Tywin Lannister or something? Help me O’ Wise Gay Muslim. Not sure I can turn my back on the NFL…but Kroenke, Goodell, and Grubman deuced all over me and our city on the way out.”

I think you have to treat it like a divorce and not rush into a new relationship. 

Then, just like in a divorce, you know how any man with a brain who gets divored gets remarried to a younger woman, I think you have to find yourself a young quarterback to commit to. So you’ve got two good options here in relatively close geographic proximity — Luck and Mariota.  

The other possibility is you just follow Jeff Fisher and the Rams to Los Angeles and keep rooting for them, but as any Titan fan can tell you, Jeff Fisher is probably going to go either 7-9 or 8-8 and kick a ton of field goals. It’s what he does. We’ve been talking about this on the radio for years and years.

When he was with the Titans one of my buddies liked to point out that no coach in the history of the NFL spent more time analyzing the wind for field goals than Jeff Fisher. That’s why I was surprised he took the Rams job, because that’s eight games a year in a dome when he couldn’t analyze windspeed to assess field goal kicking distance.  

Will writes:

“As a Panthers fan, this season and playoff run has been great, but also is starting to get costly. Tickets for the last two playoff games weren’t cheap, but nothing compared to what it would cost for travel, lodging, and a ticket for the Super Bowl. I have been out of college for almost two years now, and have a decent job, but do not make that much money. However, I do have a good amount of money saved up and could realistically drain all of my savings on a trip to California for the game. My question to you: is spending all of my savings on a trip to the Super Bowl worth it, or should I be rational and wait until I can actually afford to go to the game?”

If your team makes the Super Bowl and you can afford to go, I think you go. I mean, every sports fan wants to go to a Super Bowl at least once in his or her life, right? If the Titans ever make the Super Bowl again — guys, stop laughing at me — you can bet I’ll go and take my entire family too. 

Look, you’re 24 or 25 now. You aren’t married and you don’t have kids. Sure, the Panthers may make the Super Bowl in a few years when you have more money. But what if they don’t make the Super Bowl until you’re married and you have kids and you can’t get away then? You want to go to the Super Bowl when your team is actually playing in it.  

Right now your only obstacle is money that you’ve already saved up. You’re 24, what are you saving money for? Retirement? Stop being such a loser.  

You can always make more money. 

I’d go. 

Anonymous:

“Clay,
I read your column every day. I am an Alabama graduate. I don’t agree with you on your 85% theory, but I do think it’s funny. I speak for most, if not all, Alabama fans. I hate Cam Newton. I told my wife that I will not watch a snap of the Super Bowl. I contend that if you are a true Alabama fan, you can’t in good conscience, watch the Super Bowl. For Alabama fans the two most hated players in football are Cam Newton and Peyton Manning. My wife is an Auburn fan. I told her I hope Cam has a Joe Theismann like leg break in the Super Bowl. I also told her that I hoped Peyton Manning’s giant forehead was concussed in the game. She said I was a shitty person. I have to admit that even though I wanted those statements to be a bit tongue in cheek, I mostly truly deep down want bad things to happen to sCam and Forehead. Does this make me a shitty person?”

Yes.

But we already knew you were a shitty person. 

After all, you’re a Bama fan. 

More seriously, I think you have to stop the hate at the point where actual injury arrives. I’d root for each guy to throw five interceptions apiece. (Also, Peyton’s already won a Super Bowl, so I’m pretty sure you have to root for him to win another one instead of Cam winning his first Super Bowl. You’ll never hear the end of this from Auburn fans). 

JD writes:

“Clay,

So I’m sure you’ve heard Travis Kelce is doing a dating show where 50 women compete for his love or hand in marriage or some shit like that. My question if it was Travis Henry or Antonio Cromartie competing in his place what would be the over/under on babies produced. I say you have to start at 25.5 even then I’d bet the mortgage on the over.”

It’s low because most women who go on dating shows would have abortions.

But here you’re talking about pro athletes with super sperm so these chicks might think they hit the baby lottery — I go 4.5 babies.