College football, Crisis Management, Fox Sports.com, SI.com

Playing Politics…SI Scores With Obama

With the Iowa caucus upon us this week, we went looking for candidates who would be dipping into the sports arena for meetings, photos and good will to garner support in the polls. With Mitt Romney’s Salt Lake Olympic experience, John McCain’s tremendous love for the outdoors, and Rudy Giuliani’s love of the Yankees, we anticipated that some candidates would be dipping into the rich field of high school or collegiate athletics (nothing bigger than Iowa wrestling this time of year) for some meet and greets.  Alas, the only, and best link between politics and sports came from Sports Illustrated, who scored a great coup with Barack Obama hooping it up with Scott Price in the latest issue (along with photos on si.com).  I asked a well connected political operative his thoughts on why there weren’t more sports related stories or content in Iowa or New Hampshire so far, and he provided some interesting points.

1- The photo op has got to show it will drive voters:  Candidates time is very limited, and the time to adequately pose and stage a shot in an athletic environment may not make the impact required…also these states remain high school (aka athletes who can’t yet vote) hotbeds, so again impact is lessened.

2- The issues for voters today do not revolve around athletic issues or crisis at this time:  Although childhood obesity should be an issue, it does not make a top ten at this point, but the Mitchell Report  is in the distance and these states do not have the celebrity athletic focus that others do.  The candidates have to stick to the key topics at this point.

3- No time to get outside the environment:  Like entertainers, candidates will not do anything at this stage that will look like an awkward photo.  Senator McCain can’t hunt at this point, and its not golf season in the early states, so wrestling and hoops may not work for Senator Clinton of former Governor Huckabee.

Now thats not to say as larger, celebrity driven states come into focus that we won’t see candidates mixing it up for exposure, but the connection between the candidates and sports seems secondary at this point.  Although we would love SI to do some additional pieces with the other candidates, which can get more people interested in the process.  

Couple of other good articles of note lately…it wasn’t sports related but Janet Rae-Dupree’s piece on innovation in the Sunday Times is worth bookmarking  …Jeff Goodman on foxsports.com had a nice New Year’s piece on Andy Kennedy and the job he has done at Ole Miss to rebuild his reputation and a long-lagging program…and a couple of historical boll pieces of note were the Kansas City Star’s Brady McCullough’s look at the 1969 Orange Bowl and Jerry Crowe’s look back at the 1942 Rose Bowl in the LA Times.