anything under the sun

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA—Never mind Manny Pacquiao’s forgettable experience on the hustings.
Opinionated members of the sports glitterati are not content merely endorsing political campaigns.
They’d rather join the wild and wooly world of politics themselves.
The latest world sports celebrity to test the waters is ex-NBA star Kevin Johnson.
Will he end up like Pacquiao, who lost face and oodles of money in a failed attempt to win a congressional seat in South Cotabato?
It will be up to the voters of this state capital come June 3.
Until Johnson declared his candidacy for Sacramento mayor, the incumbent Heather Fargo was expected to win in a romp. Now Heather’s climb to a third term suddenly became stiffer.
Will her honor, the mayor, pull a Darlene Antonino Custodio (who knocked out Pacquiao in the South Cotabato political ring)?
She could, despite Johnson’s star power—which has turned a once obscure mayoral campaign into national news, much like Pacquiao’s ill-fated congressional run attracted so much sports press mileage worldwide.
Unlike Pacquiao’s, Johnson’s campaign surrogates are many and moneyed.
The latest to headline his fundraiser was a former nemesis and the more famous of the National Basketball Association’s Johnson men of long ago—Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Magic, who clashed with Kevin in many an NBA tussle when the now mayoral candidate was the premier guard of the Phoenix Suns, headlined a getting-to-know-his-namesake party lately.
The tab, $75 per. If the guests wanted a picture with Kevin, it cost $1,150 each.
Like Manny, Kevin is not without cash. He lent his own campaign a cool $500,000. But he would need a lot more dough in an effort to unseat Heather, his chief opponent who has picked up campaign cash and a few high-profile supporters herself.
It will be a test of experience versus youth, celebrity bling versus self-made political luster. Fargo has led the city in the last eight years as it strives to reach the next level.
Sacramento’s mayor is the leader of a city that is the cultural, educational, business and governmental center of a four-county metropolis. The region has become home to a steady stream of new residents, including Filipino-Americans from the nearby San Francisco Bay area.
As California’s capital, Sacramento is at center stage of governmental policy for the entire state—the sixth largest economy in the world.
After his NBA days, Kevin Johnson became a business entrepreneur and urban real state developer like Magic. He is a genuine homegrown celebrity, having been born and bred in the city’s tough Oak Park neighborhood.
Johnson’s political leaders say the relationships their candidate has created throughout the United States as an NBA star and businessman will benefit Sacramento.
Meantime, Fargo, a former state employee who became the city’s first full-time mayor after an amendment to the city charter in 2002, is taken aback. She said running against a celebrity is different.
She told the Sacramento Bee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning local newspaper, that Johnson is “not expected to know the answers; he's not asked as tough questions. Obviously he has a lot more financial resources. He does not have to worry about campaign limits… On the upside, it also brings a lot of attention to the campaign. More people know there’s a mayor’s race in town than would have otherwise.”
Fargo has kept on baiting Johnson into debating her on the issues confronting the capital city. So far, Johnson has agreed to participate in one debate, a 90-minute forum with him and the other candidates.
Since announcing his candidacy last month, life on the campaign trail has considerably become nastier for Johnson. Already, he had to go to the media to belie allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls in Phoenix and Sacramento.
This after one of the candidates, bounty hunter and bail bondsman Leonard Padilla, released a police report on the Phoenix case to the Sacramento press.