So the Seattle Seahawks lost the Super Bowl in a heartbreaker. This part of the world is in mourning. Folks have been living and breathing Super Bowl mania for, it seems, years, even before the Hawks went to the 2014 Bowl.

New England, of course, is ecstatic. They’ll be having the parades Seattle had last year (when the weather allows).

Elections resemble sports events. When I was young, winning both elections and sports contests was more important to me than winning is now. Especially with elections, I’ve seen too many defeats turn into later victories and victories descend into defeat. The United States hasn’t missed an election since the country began them back in the eighteenth century, so there’s always next time.

It’s the work in between that’s important. So can we stop obsessing about who’s going to run late in 2016?