Politics as Sport

From Atrios:

95% of the time in politics, all that matters who is perceived as playing offense and who is perceived as playing defense. The details are usually irrelevant, although occasionally such things backfire. If you can get the press to report your team as playing offense, then you're winning, and the team playing defense is seen as losing.

I made that 95% figure up, though 80% of the time I'm correct about such things.