PLEASE, PEYTON, DON’T DO IT
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m possibly jumping the gun here.
But on the chance that one of Tennessee’s favorite (adopted) sons is actually kicking around the “I might want run for office” can, I have only one thing to say: Please, Peyton, don’t do it.
The six folks that regularly read my column (hi, Mom!) are likely aware that though I have Hamilton County roots, I was born and raised some 90 minutes northward on I-75. And up that way, the Holy Trinity is as follows: Dolly Parton, Pat Head Summitt and Peyton Manning. Sure, other civic saints exist there — Gen. Neyland and James Agee among them — but the Dolly, Pat and Peyton triumvirate is revered above all others.
Shoot, you needn’t bother mentioning their last names for people to know who you’re referencing.
What’s fascinating about Peyton, though, is that many Tennesseans — not just the Upper East Tennessee variety — consider him family. I’m not talking second cousin status either. I mean nuclear family, brother and son. Just think, there are literally thousands of Peytons in our family trees today. Between 1995 (the year after he became UT’s starting quarterback) and 2016, more than 2,400 Tennessee babies have been named, presumably, after Peyton.
And except for a few pockets of ne’er do well fan bases, mainly around Shelby and Davidson counties (bless them), we’ve cheered him on in all his endeavors, from Indianapolis to Denver to the “Saturday Night Live” stage in New York.
That’s why all the recent “will he run for office?” clattering gives me, and others, some pause. Not because I don’t think he’d be successful at politics. If he did announce a bid for U.S. Senate, the post most people think he’d best fit, he would be an instant front-runner whose mere presence would dissuade many other aspirants from wasting their time and money.
No doubt the Tennessee GOP would be keen on that proposition — should either Lamar Alexander or Bob Corker decide against campaigning for re-election — since there’s not a chance in the world Peyton would run as anything other than a Republican.
Too, if elected, Peyton maintains a statesmanlike demeanor that would bode well in the Senate. Indeed, he’s the kind of person I would typically encourage, quite loudly, to throw their hat in the ring.
But there’s something different about this circumstance. It’s that no matter how many ballots he’d win by, or how well he might perform in office, it would be stomach-churning to watch Peyton discuss — and catch heat for — a vote to, say, defund Planned Parenthood. Peyton talking abortion? Thanks, but no thanks.
Perhaps it’s selfish of me to want to remember Peyton mainly as the SEC champion or the Super Bowl MVP. Yet, there are countless examples of celebrities who’ve stumbled during Act Two of their careers. And Washington, D.C., is a pit full of vipers squirming at the chance to trip good folks up and strangle them while they’re down.
You might be thinking something like, “Come on, man, it was just a single round of golf with the president. Slow your hyperventilating, Martin.” If you are, I can’t blame you. That said, I do hope Times Free Press sports columnist Mark Wiedmer is on the mark with his column from earlier this week, that “Peyton Manning (is) too smart to run for public office.”
Smarts aside, Peyton’s not the kind of fellow who’d want to instantly turn millions of fans into political foes.
Especially when many of those fans are something akin to family.