{"id":145,"date":"2009-04-30T18:48:12","date_gmt":"2009-04-30T19:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/blog\/?p=145"},"modified":"2022-04-27T22:25:05","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T02:25:05","slug":"vote-for-spartacus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/vote-for-spartacus\/","title":{"rendered":"Vote for Spartacus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>He\u2019s running for office. Of all the details in various media reports about boxing champ, Manny Pacquiao, that\u2019s the one that strikes me. Pacquiao will face Ricky Hatton in a sold-out fight in Las Vegas on Saturday. The bout is highly touted, and for good reason, since Hatton holds a world title (140-pounds) and Pacquiao is often thought to be the best boxer in the business. Neither man is a heavyweight but both generate heat. Pacquiao (\u201cthe Pac Man\u201d) is a fit lefty with speed and power; Hatton (\u201cthe Hit Man\u201d) is strong and aggressive. The guaranteed purse is $12 million per fighter.
\n<\/p>\n

I\u2019m putting my money on Pacquiao\u2019s political ambitions. He plans to run for Congress in his native Philippines. His national hero status, some say, makes him more popular there than the president. He has even met Imelda Marcus.<\/p>\n

The Pac Man\u2019s aim outside the ring is a reminder of the age-old tie between sports and politics. Combat sports probably offer the most cachet: the mere fact of being a heavyweight gladiator, for instance, gave Spartacus credibility. But any sports success will rub off on an office-seeker. In ancient Athens, for instance, the rogue politician Alcibiades climbed his record of sponsoring chariot-race winners at the Olympics all the way to a top military command. Next to that, American presidential golfers and basketball players seem low-key.<\/p>\n

If Spartacus were running for Congress today, would his campaign slogan be \u201cHe\u2019ll clean house the way he cleaned up in the arena\u201d? Or maybe, \u201cNow that\u2019s what I call a left hook\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[392],"tags":[260],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barrystrauss.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}