The New Republic

Ed Kilgore is managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, and a frequent contributor to a variety of political journals.  

It's one of those irresistible Dog Day stories, I suppose. The college football blog Every Day Should Be Saturday has the goods:

The U.S. House of Representatives certainly has never had a shortage of complete nutcakes, but ever since former Rep. Tom Osborne (R-NE) declined to run for re-election in 2006 (in favor of an ultimately unsuccessful run for governor), it has been regrettably short on former coaching legends. According to the Orlando Sentinel, though, next year the House may have a shot at bolstering its numbers in both categories: Former Notre Dame head coach and current ESPN talking/babbling head Lou Holtz has been talking to national Republican leaders about the possibility of running against incumbent Rep. Suzanne Kosmas for the Congressional seat representing Florida's 24th district.

Holtz, some of you may recall, has gotten into hot water for his conservative views before.  His close friendship with Jesse Helms back in the day was reportedly a factor in the hike he was invited to take by the University of Arkansas back in 1983.  Indeed, his first act in his next job, in Minnesota, was to promise the governor that he was through with politics.

A quarter century later, and safe from athletic directors and college presidents, Holtz may be ready to indulge his inner Helms.  But in the unlikely event he succeeds in his political ambitions, he'll probably stand out less on CSPAN than on ESPN.   

--Ed Kilgore

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