Football and politics. One is a unifying force, a shared experience for nearly all Americans, a common thread in the fabric of the nation that serves as a source of goodwill, community-building and even drastic improvements in the lives of some individuals. The other is politics. With the Super Bowl mere days away and the Republican primaries smack in the midst of an endless season, it’s time for my first annual, woefully titled: Brody’s Super Bowl Prediction based solely on the Republican primary candidates.

Of the two Super Bowl teams, the Republican primary candidates more closely resemble the New York Giants than the New England Patriots. For one, Patriots owner Robert Kraft has donated more than $55,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee since 2008. For the purpose of this column, giving money to the leftist DNC cannot allow for a Republican label, because it may cause Newt Gingrich’s head to explode. So the Patriots are therefore disqualified from representing the Republicans.

Furthermore, it may actually be a sin for anyone to associate Rick Santorum with Boston, as he has no secret affection for the city. In 2002, when prompted to supply his prodigious insight into the Roman Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, he said, “Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected … it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.”

Because of such open opposition to Boston, The New York Football Giants will hereby be known as the New York Football Republicans. In reality, the team closely mirrors the candidates. First, the easy comparison: Mitt Romney is Eli Manning.

Both are incredibly petulant, have a deep sense of unbridled entitlement and come from an aristocratic family in their given profession. Mitt’s poppa, George R. Romney, was the governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969 and served in Richard Nixon’s cabinet. Manning’s sire was NFL quarterback Archie Manning, a lousy quarterback, whose career QB rating of 67.1 puts him below Joey Harrington.

For those who don’t follow football, Harrington would’ve done better on “The Bachelor” than in the backfield.

Archie then served as a principal advisor in Eli’s decision to denounce San Diego in the wake of the 2004 NFL draft. Through his voluntary preclusion from playing or living in San Diego, one can reasonably conclude Eli to not be human, which also happens to be the main issue of contention with Romney’s candidacy. In fact I’d like to go on record demanding him to produce a birth certificate proving he is a human being.

The rest of the candidates do not fall as seamlessly into place, but there are certainly parallels. Gingrich is clearly the Giants’ Defense. He is resting on his past laurels, his “Washington insider” experience as Speaker of the House: something he must voluntarily work into every fifth sentence of a public speaking engagement.

Meanwhile, the fearsome Giants defense is also a thing of the past, as the Giants ranked 27th in the league this year in total defense, and gave up an average of 25 points a game. Despite these past achievements, like the Giants heading into the Super Bowl on Sunday, Gingrich is being called a difference maker, and a legitimate contender for the nomination.

The Giants’ head coach is quite unmistakably Ron Paul. Both are ancient, angry at the establishment and written-off in terms of legitimacy. Tom Coughlin has led the Giants to the playoffs in five of nine seasons and taken them to two Super Bowls, yet credit still seems to elude him; similarly Paul has raised loads of money and has a passionate base of followers, but is viewed as a fringe candidate. Moreover, Paul has served in Congress for nearly two decades, while Coughlin has been a coach in the NFL for nearly three. Finally, Rick Santorum is the Giants Special Teams, solely because of his recent statements encouraging victims of rape who have been impregnated to make the best of a bad situation.

The final commonality between the New York Giants and the challengers for the Republican nomination is they are all doomed to lose when it really matters. This crop of Republican challengers are either too old, too angry, too robotic or too Rick Santorumesque to stand a real chance against President Barack Obama in a general election.

The extensive number of debates has only allowed the wolf pack to feast upon itself before going to the general election. The fact the race is wide open may not be a good thing: It’s not wide open because of differing viewpoints or ideologies, it’s wide open because many Americans do not see a genuine candidate among the four remaining.

In no way am I comparing the dysfunctional Democratic Party to the brilliance that is the New England Patriots. The donkeys wish they had a talented strategist like Bill Belichick or a beefcake like Tom Brady. Comparing the Democratic Party to the Patriots would certainly be an insult to the New England franchise.

As is the case in nearly all American elections, it’s merely the lesser of the two evils, and to the majority of Americans (who actually vote) Obama is the lesser evil. On Sunday it will also be a contest about the lesser of two evils, but in this case it’s two evils in the form of two marginal defenses.

So, finally, here are my predictions: This Sunday I’m taking the Patriots, 31 to 17, and in the general election, Obama over Romney.