Similie

As a bit of pre-reading warning, I will let my brother and those who are put off by sports discussion that what you are about to peruse is metaphor. It is the limitation of the author that keeps things in simplest terms, for him. So here we go:
The NFL playoffs are about to start. Some teams, such as the Green Bay Packers and the New England Patriots, effectively stomped through their season and made their way into the post season. If you win most of your games, you can kind of expect that your job will be easy until you wake up that one morning and the stakes of the game have been raised to "win or go home." In this regard, the analogy I choose to use is this: The Green Bay Packers are the incumbent. They won last year's Super Bowl, and while they may be seen as being weak on defense, they are the ones to beat this January.
On the other hand, there are a wide array of challengers to that throne, starting with the upstart Denver Broncos who managed not to lose too many games, as opposed to winning enough to push themselves into a higher seed. The same can be said of the Cincinnati Bengals, who kept a number of mediocre teams from making it into the tournament. We could refer to this as the caucuses and primaries. This winter stretches out in front of us like a flurry of contests that mean little or nothing except the winner ends up being crowned the champion of the world. Leader of the Free World. Aaron Rodgers. Barack Obama. Tim Tebow. Ron Paul. Plenty of characters. Lots of intrigue. Only one winner.
When it's all over, we'll sweep up the confetti and dry the tears. No matter how objectionable we might find the results, we'll get ready for the next one. Win or lose.