Outside Online (one of my favorite magazines)
run a peice about the candidates riding skills.
Turns out Bush, who we all knew was a big-time runner, is also one helluva mountain biker. He’s taken up the fat tire
because his knees too a pounding from his long runs. Bush seems downright phiolosophical about the whole exercise
thing.
“When you ride a bike and get your heart rate up and you’re out—after about 30 or 40 minutes, your mind tends to
expand; it tends to relax. My worries tend to dissipate,” he says. “That’s not to say that shortly thereafter, when I
walk inside the house and get a phone call that says something is going wrong or there is a difficult situation, I
can’t log back on to it. But it’s important for people to get their minds off their worries at some point during the
day. It makes you a more rounded person and helps you make better decisions. I think this is something where you’ve
got to concentrate.”
Kerry meanwhile, no exercise slacker himself (all this fitness intensity almost makes you long a bit for doughy
Clinton?) comes off as a bit of a poseur…which is not surprising.
By all accounts, Candidate Kerry is a truly devoted athlete. That’s something that can’t be spun and something
most of us would appreciate in the White House. But a little poser protection can’t hurt—and would probably improve
his ratings. The candidate should remember that nothing is forever. If the pang of loss over windsurfing becomes too
great, he can take it up again when he’s writing his memoirs.