Trump, Like a Rabbit in a Track and Field Race

[Formerly Once-Ler]

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In distance running no competitor wants to lead during the early part of the race. Instead, the runners want to “draft” behind someone else. The result is a slow pace, which fans generally hate. In response, meet directors often hire a rabbit—a less-accomplished runner, who is paid to lead the field with a fast pace. Because the rabbit is usually worse than the other runners, and because he cannot draft off the others, he usually fatigues early and drops out around the halfway or three-quarters mark.

Donald Trump, in many ways, reminds me of such a rabbit. Although he is leading in the polls, the betting markets don’t give him much chance of winning the nomination. Specifically, according to Paddy Power, his odds are 8:1, fourth behind Jeb Bush 5:4, Scott Walker, 4:1, and Marco Rubio, 6:1.

Sometimes, in a track-and-field race the field just “lets the rabbit go”—that is, the other runners allow him to take a big lead and no one even tries to draft off of him. One reason is that the best runners in the race know that the rabbit will drop out eventually, and none of them want to be the leader when that occurs. Consequently, the top runners have a sort of contest to see who can run the slowest pace.

I predict that something like that will occur at tomorrow’s debate. The three leaders in the betting markets, Bush, Walker, and Rubio, will not criticize Trump. Instead, if they attack any candidates, it will be each other. I predict that their attitude toward Trump will be “let the rabbit go.”

Of course, such a strategy could backfire, and indeed it has in track and field. The most famous case was the 1500m at the 1981 Bislett Games. American Tom Byers, who was not quite a world-class runner, was hired to be the rabbit. The world-class runners in the race let him go. He built a huge lead by the halfway point. The other runners wanted to quicken the pace to catch him, but no one wanted to lead and thus allow the others to draft off of him. The result was that Byers defeated a host of runners who were better than him.