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Do the democratic thing
With 201 days left until the US presidential election,
Democratic candidate John Kerry has done the smart thing. He has
gone to his family’s (actually his wife’s late husband’s family’s)
spread near Sun Valley. Kerry is reputed to be a decent skier and
snowboarder. And with the outlook for snow looking halfway promising
in Idaho, Kerry has the means to fortify himself with a few powder
turns before facing the rigors of the campaign trail.
Snow sports and politics have a long association. Sun Valley’s visitors
this winter have included Governor Schwartzenegger, who described
skiing at the time Terminator 3 was released as “the one place and
activity you don’t need computers yet.” Nor clearly does he feels
any particular obligation to support only California’s resorts.
This is unlike Democratic house leader Nancy Pelosi who has a house
at Sugar Bowl where she regularly hits the slopes.
Sun Valley haven
In fact, Sun Valley has a long history of attracting high profile
politicians. Presidents from Bill Clinton, all the way back to Harry
Truman visited the resort, although this may or may not provide
any indication to the outcome of this year’s presidential race.
Of course, other ski areas also feature in recent presidential history.
Gerald Ford’s house at Beaver Creek led to a celebrated episode
in political coverage in the early 70s when the White House press
core spent several days driving or even chartering helicopters to
take them back and forth to Denver to file essentially meaningless
stories about the President’s day on the slopes.
Dean was a skibum
When not projecting American power in the Middle East, vice-president
Dick Cheney occasionally drops by his place at Teton Pines a few
miles from Jackson Hole, although he is more enthusiastic about
hunting local wildlife than skiing. His cohort, secretary of defense
Donald Rumsfeld, has a ranch in Taos, right next door to Julia Roberts.
There is no record of them skiing together. But Howard Dean, a recent
strong critic of Cheney and Rumsfeld’s projection of American power
was noted for spending the year ski bumming in Aspen, immediately
after having failed his Vietnam draft board physical.
The entire Kennedy clan has a history on the slopes, although the
most recent episode to gain public attention was the tragic and
lethal interaction of Michael Kennedy with a tree at Aspen, while
participating in a game of on-slope football. This occurred shortly
before California congressman and former singer Sonny Bono met a
similar fate at Heavenly. One result was a leap in helmet sales,
which manufacturers macabrely referred to, as “the politician factor.”
[Source: Skipressworld]
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