Please excuse this brief, down and dirty summary of the rules of craps:
The game begins by placing your chips on the table on one of two line bets: the "Pass Line" or "Don't Pass Line." The dice are pushed over to the Shooter and the Shooter lets fly with the first roll - the "Come Out Roll." If the Shooter rolls a & '7' or "11" everybody with chips on the "Pass Line" is a winner and the "Don't Pass" bet is a loser. If the Shooter rolls a 2, 3 or 12 the "Don't Pass" wins and the "Pass Line" loses. When the Shooter rolls any number other than 2, 3, 7, 11, or 12; say & '5' for example, a hockey puck sized "Mark" is placed over the painted number "5" spot on the felt. All players with "Pass Line" bets are then hoping the Shooter rolls a & '5 ' before she rolls a "7" - known as a "crap out." All players on the "Don't Pass Line" are hoping the Shooter "craps out" with a "7" before rolling a "5". The dice are passed to a new Shooter and the game begins again whenever the Shooter hits the "Mark" or "Craps Out."
The best bet in any casino is the "Don't Pass" bet at a craps table - your odds of winning are a little less than 50%. The problem is that Craps is a social game, ruled by the spirit of the small, excitable mob crowded around the table - all in league together, all wanting to profit against the casino, all cheering the Shooter on to hit the "Mark". Walk up to a red hot table full of shiny shirt dudes and silky dress babes shouting, jumping, winning and loving life - and slap down a "Don't Pass" bet. The effect will be something similar to wearing a Raider jersey to Qualcomm on game day. Or showing up drunk to a baby shower. Or knocking over old people in the crosswalk. The "Don't Pass" bet is your best chance for go it alone profit, but it's simply bad form to place the bet.
McCain has been calculating the "proper" odds and slapping down "Don't Pass" bets since the beginning of his campaign. But the excitable mob surrounding this particular craps table is the American electorate - and it has had to hold its collective nose shut ever since McCain laid his chips down. "Hope" was ridiculed as empty rhetoric - McCain slaps down a "Don't Pass" bet with mocking Paris Hilton ads. Intelligent discussion of real issues was derided as elitism - another "Don't Pass" bet hits the table. McCain digs deep and risks shameful ruin with the gaudiest "Don't Pass" bet of all in the form of Sarah Palin. & Substantive debate is abandoned in favor of vile and baseless innuendo. & McCain hit all of these "Don't Pass" bets and the race was too close to call. And then Wall Street got the dice. McCain had everything riding on the "Don't Pass Line" - and the numbers came up ugly. The economic crisis forced the candidates to focus on a single real issue; a dire emergency which called for concrete, complex engagement. McCain chose political grandstanding, personal attacks and off topic win-at-all-cost tactics - his final "Don't Pass" bet.
More capable pundits can parse the finer points of last night's debate. But John McCain spent more time talking about Obama's supposed personal and policy shortcomings than he did in trying to elucidate his own vision for the nation. I understood Obama's healthcare proposal in a broad sense. McCain made no real effort to explain his - instead he attacked Obama's. He made no attempt to explain why his trickle down tax plan is not identical to other failed trickle down tax plans. He made no attempt to back up his off hand comment that he would "balance the budget in four years." & McCain's general election campaign has been a reactionary effort since its inception. The "Don't Pass" strategy ignores the will of the people, collective energy and collective good. It's not always good to be a Maverick.
