Dear Mr. Candidate, Don't Ruin My Sports With Your Campaign Appearance

Here's an interesting little story -- well, at least to me.

As many of you are aware, I have my political beliefs. But I don't like my politics mixing with sports. I especially don't like politicians show up at sporting events and get the free publicity. If you boo the bastards, then the fans of the guy get mad at you while you get mad at the people around you being total morons. And if you cheer the politico, then the opposite is bound to happen.

Long story short, I'm at the Aeros game on Friday night. Now my co-bloggers at The Third Intermission have yet to arrive, so I'm taking notes and watching the game for my game stories for the blog and for the mothership. Plus I've got the T3I twitter responsibilities, so I'm handling that, as well.

Right before the game, one Houston mayoral candidate Gene Locke appeared to drop the first puck. And later during the game, Locke got some prime campaigning time to himself as he got to speak to the crowd deliver a quick speech. It was announced that his opponent, Annise Parker, was asked to appear but that she declined. So I tweeted this.

Someone from the Locke campaign saw the tweet, and they responded by tweet that Ms. Parker was asked to appear "but for some reason could not attend." Well, it now appears that this some reason for the failure appear was because, before the Aeros came calling, both of them had agreed to appear on a debate that was to be televised live by the local PBS station at exactly the same time as the hockey game. A debate at which Ms. Parker appeared, fulfilling her commitment.

I write this because, as I said, I don't like having politicians ruin my sporting events, and this guy really sucked the energy out of the arena. I also don't like it when politicians treat me like an idiot. And this guy and his staff must have thought I was a huge idiot. So when the mothership had a bit on this today, and it mentioned Locke missing the debate, but didn't tell where he was at, I felt compelled to send my editor a note, and...busted.

So don't ruin my damn sporting events. And damn, if you're going to chicken out on scheduled campaign appearances, don't go blaming it on the opposition, at don't try to make me look like a fool.