Recently readers of rivals.com may have noticed ads appearing on that site from the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. This is really not a surprising move considering the ancient ties between college football and American presidents. A young Ronald Reagan made a documentary about Notre Dame football. Years before serving as president, Gerald Ford was tripping over defensive tackles as an All-American center at Michigan.
Following Giuliani’s lead, H2DN has learned that several other presidential hopefuls are adopting their own strategies to gain the support of college football fans:
- In order to not be seen as an outsider in the college football community, New York senator Hillary Clinton is now a “die hard” fan of Florida, Florida State, Miami (both of them), Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, Iowa State, and Missouri.
- Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon, obviously has the support of BYU and Utah fans, but unfortunately for him while that will help him score one major upset, as soon as he relies on their help he is doomed to failure for another twenty years.
- Despite being born in Hawaii, Illinois senator Barack Obama insists he is not just a “system politician.”
- Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has hired Mitch Mustain’s high school coach as his campaign manager.
- In 2004, vice-presidential nominee John Edwards was not able to deliver his home state of North Carolina to the Kerry campaign. To shore up his base for 2008, he is pretending that football doesn’t exist and is focusing his attention on basketball.
- Arizona senator John McCain is trying to dissuade criticisms that he’s not conservative enough by vigorously fighting for a permanent return of the traditional Big Ten-Pac Ten Rose Bowl matchup.
- Finally, not to be outdone by the major party candidates, Green Party nominee Elaine Brown was recently spotted wearing a Ricky Williams jersey.
