Sunday, August 03, 2008
Quick, Sports, "Hunt's Grunts"

Election Enlightenment

 A few weeks ago, during the state general primary, I found myself assisting on a news story...

By Hunt Archbold

A few weeks ago, during the state general primary, I found myself assisting on a news story focusing on the Fulton County sheriff’s race. As I bounced between candidates’ campaign headquarters, I found the entire situation utterly sad. Watching Ted Jackson, who faces incumbent Myron Freeman in this week’s runoff, speaking with the lone working reporter that night, I could literally count on my fingers and toes the number of supporters who had gathered at Jackson’s headquarters awaiting results. I couldn’t help but wonder, where was everyone else? Were they at home that night watching the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which nationally drew an 11 percent higher TV rating than the 2007 contest?

Record turnouts are expected for this November’s presidential vote. And just in case you need to be reminded who’s running, a certain Senator from Illinois has bought a whopping $5 million in national advertising to be broadcast during the Beijing Olympics. And speaking of elections, Olympics and buying, I wonder if we’ll ever get the full details as to what extent organizers for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games bribed members of the International Olympic Committee to secure the 1996 Games? Oh, yes, those ACOG documents were conveniently destroyed prior to the formal inquiry.

Fixing elections is nothing new—just ask Al Gore. Or Marvin Miller, the former executive director of Major League Baseball’s Players Association, who helped build the players’ union into one of the strongest unions in country and made millionaires of countless players. Miller was close to being elected into baseball’s Hall of Fame in recent years, but a revamping of the voting format in 2008 put the decision process into the hands of executives and former executives, the same folks Miller helped take power away from. Needless to say, while his old adversary, the late former commissioner Bowie Kuhn, was being inducted into Cooperstown last week, Miller (who had routinely received more votes than Kuhn in previous elections) was nowhere to found. Why I’m coming to Miller’s defense and not somebody like, say, the Braves’ Corky Miller is beyond me at this moment.

Kentucky Republican senator and Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Bunning is one of several sports figures who have moved forward into political careers. Football greats Tom Osborn, Steve Largent and J.C Watts have all served in the U.S House, as did champion distance runner Jim Ryan. Basketball standout Bill Bradley served in the U.S. Senate and ran for president in 2000. Former NFL quarterback and U.S. Congressman Jack Kemp ran for president 20 years ago, and was Bob Dole’s presidential running mate in 1996.

And now we have another figure from the world of sports running for vice president, and his name is Wayne Allyn Root. I kid you not: Wayne Root, one of the biggest scamdicappers from the world of sports gambling, is the running mate of Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr. A scamdicapper, to clarify, is an industry term for those con artists who utilize a variety of sneaky practices to pry money from gullible sports gamblers. They use infomercials and the Internet to braggadociously scream how they’ve won 25 games in a row and now have the Smooth Freddy Apollo Game of the Week set to cash for just $19.95. What’s next? Is Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney going to give out her WNBA three-team parlay of the month?

My suggestion to the Libertarian Party is that if you want the mainstream media to treat you as a major player, don’t staff your ticket with a con man whose Nevada-based company (W Technologies, Inc., formerly Winning Edge Technologies, Inc.) was cited for 14 complaints (including “deceptive sales practices’’ and “unauthorized credit card charges’’) over the past 36 months to the Las Vegas Better Business Bureau. Only five of those complaints were resolved to the BBB’s satisfaction, and none to the customers’ satisfaction.

And yet, however absurd it is, Root’s presence on the ballot demonstrates that, provided certain qualifications are met, this is a free country and anyone can run for public office. And even far less stipulations need to be met in order to vote. The freedom to vote, something so foreign to so many around the globe, is taken for granted by many in our country. Including me, during last month’s primary. The turnout of the more than 4.74 million active voters in Georgia was less than 19 percent; in Fulton County, less than 12 percent. Those are just deplorable, depressing numbers that show I’m part of a complacent and lazy populace. But no longer: I will be voting this Tuesday, and making a vow to never pass on such a privilege again.

Happy times … and the polls open on Tuesday at 7 a.m.   SP