Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Besse’s Long Run

Progressive politics meets Prefontaine.

That seems to be the idea behind this new campaign video from Dan Besse, a Winston-Salem city councilman who is running for lieutenant governor. Running, indeed. Spliced between blurbs about Besse’s government service are feats of a different, more athletic kind. You can judge for yourself whether 12 years on the N.C. Environmental Management Commission are more or less impressive than 52 ultramarathons. But you can’t doubt his endurance.

In an e-mail to supporters last week, Besse said the video’s producers “had me running up and down the streets of Winston-Salem for two hours” in order to get enough footage. It’d be surprising if he even broke a sweat. According to the video, Besse has run a sub-five-minute mile, a sub-39-minute 10K and (this is no typo) a sub-24-hour 100-miler.

What is it about running and politics? John Edwards, for one, never misses his daily run — even if it means squeezing it in between campaign stops in rural Iowa. Just this morning, the Des Moines Register had an interesting story about running (for sport) while running (for office).

As a fellow runner (who likely would not stand a chance in a footrace against any of these guys), Trail Mix is impressed.