Orson Swindle For President

by T Kyle King on Jun 19, 2007 8:27 AM EDT in Football

As a general rule, I avoid voting for University of Florida graduates.

In the 2002 presidential election, despite my strong rightward leanings, I voted for incumbent President Josiah Bartlet rather than for Florida Governor Robert Ritchie.

Oh, wait . . . that was just a T.V. show, wasn't it?

In the hot blogger bracket hosted by the Ladies . . ., I voted for Sunday Morning Quarterback over I Want to be a Sports Agent's Darren Heitner, who was the valedictorian of the University of Florida's 2007 graduating class and will be an entering first-year law student in Gainesville next fall. (By the way, the updated bracketology is available here.)

However, there is one University of Florida graduate to whom I am able to pledge my unqualified support and that man is Orson Swindle.

Together with his running mate, Peter Bean, Orson (or, to use the term by which we will be referring to him as of noon on January 20, 2009, "Mr. President") has put together the rules by which the intercollegiate athletics blogosphere is to be governed for the 2007 football season. Among the pertinent provisions are these:

When referring to a team's ranking, we will use the BlogPoll. Two years of Beta Testing were enough to let us know that the bloggin' types pay a lot more attention to their ballots than the jaded, overworked sportswriters. Furthermore, as far as we're concerned, the Harris Poll doesn't exist. And let's not even bring up coaches voting on other coaches except in the name of sporting satire. . . .

We will mercilessly ridicule BlogPoll voters who fail to live up to the BlogPoll's ever-improving standards. Wack balloteers who fail to justify their opinions will be openly mocked.

I am all on board for this one. As a BlogPoll voter whose ballot frequently demonstrates "deep reconsideration or general jumpiness," I am entirely in favor of providing lengthy explanations for odd voting patterns, which likely will spur further discussion of voting methodologies.

What can I tell you? I was a political science major . . . but I did not attend the School of Public and International Affairs!

Also among Orson's ordinances are these:

We will not participate in the Conference Wars. We won't be shy to look closely at schedule strength in talking about our dear sport and the ranking of teams therein, but we solemnly swear to avoid the tired, generic Conference War Chest Thumping.

Consider it done.

We will tirelessly promote the work of Sunday Morning Quarterback until he is rightly crowned College Football Blog King. No explanation needed here. Right?

Right.

We will challenge the paradigms which govern mainstream football thought, starting with LD's "GameDay Recap."

Absolutely.

We will limit our complete ad hominem hatred of a coach to one man and one man only.

I am afraid that the "one coach, one hate" rule will prove as difficult to enforce here in Georgia as the U.S. Supreme Court's "one man, one vote" decisions did. With so many natural rivals, at whom will we direct our bile? Phillip Fulmer? Urban Meyer? Steve Spurrier?

Ah, who am I kidding . . . if I can only hate one coach, let it be Auburn's Tommy Tuberville. I hate Auburn.

We couldn't care less about season-end awards. The Heisman Trophy is dead to us. Unless and until they put Kyle in charge, we're indifferent. . . .

We are fans of the game, above all else. This is s'posed to be fun, y'hear? Those who try to ruin our sport will be brutalized.

So let it be written; so let it be done.

I am officially signing the pledge, not only out of respect for its authors but because, when Peter laid down the law in the Lone Star State, 54b turned it into a Bee-Gees song. Consider that the campaign anthem.

Historians of the blogosphere one day will look back upon this day as the start of the "Draft Orson Swindle for President" movement. The math makes sense---with Peter as his vice presidential nominee on the Blog Party ticket, the electoral votes of Florida and Texas already are in the bag---and the Cabinet meetings would be . . . spirited, to say the very least. (If you doubt that, try saying this out loud and see how it sounds: "Secretary of Defense Ragin' Cajun Rebel.")

Speaking of Rebels, by the way, my brother-in-law, Craig, has identified what is liable to be one of Orson's campaign commercials: