Consider this news opinion from Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinal.
Tebow recently opened the door to a future in politics someday.
If only that day were today.
My fellow Americans, I nominate Tim Tebow for president over the loudmouths and liars like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton who currently rule our pathetic political landscape.
Tippecanoe and Tebow, too.
"If there's a chance you can make a difference someday in something, then that would be intriguing," Tebow said when he was asked the other day about a future in politics by Ainsley Earhardt of "Fox & Friends."
I hate to say I told you so, but I was way ahead of the game on this one. Six years ago, before Tebow was drafted into pro football, I predicted he was destined for much bigger things than the NFL.Those few nebulous words from Tebow, whose immense cult of personality continues to grow despite the fact that he hasn't played football in years, is all it took for major news outlets from Time to TMZ to alert the world of his political interest.
Here's what I wrote in the Orlando Sentinel on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010:
"Two games into Tim Tebow's tenure as a starting quarterback in college, I predicted he would win Heisman Trophies plus national championships and go down as one of the greatest college football players ever. Now that his college career is officially over, it's time to make another bold prediction: Tim Tebow will be the President of the United States someday.
"If Tim Tebow wanted to be a political candidate, it's his for the taking," said Orlando attorney John Stemberger, who heads Florida Family Policy Council, a politically connected conservative religious organization. "He would be a political rock star. ... He's handsome, he's humble and he has character and integrity. ... This young man could be the next Ronald Reagan or Jack Kemp if he wanted to be.""Go ahead and laugh if you want. They used to laugh, too, at the notion that another charismatic, conservative former college football player could become president. You might have heard of him. His name was Ronald Reagan.
That's what I wrote then and I'm even more confident of the prediction now. If billionaire blowhards like Trump can skyrocket to the top of the polls, think of what Tebow could become.
"If Tim Tebow really put his mind to it, he would be a tremendous political candidate," said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at UCF. "A good political campaign manager would look at Tebow and say, 'Now this is a guy I can sell in a positive way.'"
And isn't "positive" what we need most in today's noxious, negative, poisonous, polarizing political cesspool? Tebow uplifts and unifies; he doesn't denigrate and divide. In fact, nothing drives him crazier — whether it be in politics or religion — than divisive leaders. After he delivered a sermon at the Real Life Church in Clermont recently, I had a chance to talk to him about this very issue.
"The goal is to bring people together," Tebow said then. "We're not supposed to divide people. People are going to disagree on things, but we can have unity if our No. 1 priority is we love Jesus and our No. 2 priority is we love people. Let's agree on that and have the 300,000 churches in this country work together. If we did that, nobody would be dying of hunger."
As Jewett points out, Tebow already has a strong political base with the Christian right. In fact, an argument could be made that with 97-year-old Billy Graham out of the public spotlight, Tebow is the most visible Christian leader in this country (sorry, Joel Osteen). And the most politically palatable to the mainstream.
Jewett compares Tebow to Kemp, a charismatic former NFL quarterback who was a nine-term U.S. congressman and former Republican vice presidential candidate. Kemp once described himself as a "bleeding heart conservative" whom Jewett says dispatched his beliefs in a "positive and uplifting" way.
Can you think of a more compassionate conservative than Tebow, a man who builds hospitals for the needy in the Philippines, does missionary work to provide food and medical care to Third World countries, preaches to prisoners on death row and just held a "Night to Shine" prom for 32,000 special-needs kids in 48 different states and seven countries?
The man is unimpeachable. Even the most devout "pro choice" liberal would have a hard time criticizing Tebow for his very public "right to life" stance when the only reason he was even born is because his critically ill mother shunned a doctor's recommendation to undergo an abortion.
Besides, if given a choice, who would Republican women vote for: Trump, a man who's been married three times and had multiple affairs or Tebow, a self-described virgin who is saving himself for marriage?
I wrote it six years ago and I will reiterate it today: Tebow will become the first presidential candidate to take part in televised debates while wearing Biblical eye-black. And he won't even have to write a new inauguration address. He can just slightly adjust his famous "Promise" speech from when the Gators lost to Ole Miss in 2008.
"I promise you one thing: A lot of good will come from you voting me into office. You will never see any president in the history of this republic work as hard as I will work over the next four years to preserve our union's status as the greatest nation on earth. … God bless."
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