ELItorial

And the politicians take the field

"Iam not a typical candidate and this isn't going to be a typical race," warns Backlund2000.com, the official website of ex-pro wrestler turned Republican Congressional hopeful from Connecticut, Bob Backlund. Thanks for letting us know, Bob.

COURTESY NEWSMAKERS Athlete...politician...which is which?

"Mr. Backlund"—his stage name—held the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) championship belt for five consecutive years in the eighties and set a WWF record by compiling a 7-0 lifetime record against the indomitable Hulk Hogan. Maybe if he had had a cooler nickname like Jesse "The Body" Ventura, he too could have won his election. Backlund only got 29 percent of the vote, but perhaps if he hadn't been running against a strong incumbent he could have put his illustrious name up beside those of our previous representatives, all of whom, had the WWF been around back then, surely would have made names for themselves in pro wrestling before entering politics. Men like Thomas "The Jailer" Jefferson or John "Quince This Biatch" Adams.

On Tues., Nov. 7, nine athletic figures—four ex-football players, a coach, two ex-franchise owners, a former mile world record holder, and Backlund—were all up for national election. And that doesn't include Bill Bradley, who should have been. Backlund may have been the most glaringly unqualified among the group, but he was followed closely by Tom Osborne, a former Nebraska football coach who won a Congressional seat from Nebraska; Russ Francis, the former 49ers tight end who ran for Congress from Hawaii; and Bill Kenney, a former Chiefs quarterback running for Congress from Missouri. Why do athletes today think they can be politicians?

The easy explanation is that athletes have that all-important name recognition. In the age of mass entertainment, the electorate will vote for famous names over qualified legislators. Steve Largent? Jesse Ventura? If they hadn't been famous names in sports, where would they be today? When elections become, to use Al Gore's seventh-grade phrase, "a popularity contest," name recognition undoubtedly helps.

But celebrity status can't explain it all. How come the Oprahs or Jenny Joneses of the world aren't running for office, but quarterbacks are? Dan Rather and Michael Eisner have much more celebrity status than Tom Osborne, but they've held onto their day jobs. There must be something unique about sports.

Unfortunately, the real question is not why athletes are running for office, but why those running for office are like athletes.

Sure, a lot of the clichés overlap—charisma, dedication, leadership, teamwork, know your opponent, win at all costs—but those have been true for hundreds of years. Politics has always been competitive. Ask David and Goliath.

As I was waiting for election results at 4 a.m., I thought of a reason why politics these days have become more like sports. It has something to do with how hard it is to campaign given the growing size and mind-boggling diversity of the coalitions Republicans and Democrats have to build in order to survive.

Sports, you see, prize survival over principles, and body over mind. It takes a certain instinct at mile 21 of a marathon to keep going. It takes the same unthinking instinct to get up at 5 a.m. to pander to union workers at a John Deere factory in Iowa, puddle-jump through five different time zones and 20 states during the day, and then finish your night at 2 a.m. with a black tie fundraiser for Park Avenue liberals at the Waldorf. No intelligent human would want to do it, and no one without a killer instinct could.

It requires an athlete's physical endurance, an athlete's ability to shut off his better judgment, and an athlete's assurance that all the sweat and hard-work will pay off when he reaches his goal.

It also requires an athlete's ability to shut up. In building a coalition or leading a team, the less said the better. So politics, like athletics, has come to thrive on the cliché, political vocabulary has devolved into that of the post-game interview, and politicians have mastered the art of saying absolutely nothing yet being loved for it. I'd love to see John Starks and George W. Bush, DC '68, get into a war of worlds. My money would be on Starks.

So we can expect to hear more from Bob Backlund and his friends in the WWF. (I'm sure the Rock would make an excellent Senator.) Backlund may not be running a "normal" campaign, or even a good one. But it's a kind of campaign that seems to be thriving. In the presedential race, Bush and Gore both repeatedly mentioned how athletic and in shape they were. Bush even joked on Leno a few weeks ago that he would be happy to settle the election with a footrace. The way the system is set up, that would actually be a fairer test than all this Florida nonsense.

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