Sports terminology in politics

I'll be the first to admit that I am a huge sports fan. And as a sports fan, I tend to take notice when I hear a sports term used to describe an aspect in a political contest. With everything beginning to really heat up for 2008 and sports terms being thrown around all over the place, I have decided to start tracking the terminology I hear and begin to post them.

So for the first installment:

'Horse Race'

Currently being used to describe the presidential primary nomination process, this term is generally used to describe the polling numbers and statistics that go back and forth between candidates leading up to an election.

As an example Farhana Hossain at the NY Times yesterday wrote about the 'horse race' when discussing political coverage on news networks.