Manny Pacquiao has generated surprisingly little hostility by jumping from conservative to liberal, party-wise, in the Philippines, barely a month after his election to congress.
Pacquiao?s Bay Area-based crony Nonito Donaire created a bigger stir than this when he jumped from Gary Shaw to Top Rank in 2008.
The merits of Nonito?s change of promoters aside, Donaire and Shaw were allied for years, not days. Similarly, U.S. senators such as Strom Thurmond, Wayne Morse and Arlen Specter changed party affiliations only after many years of dancing with them what brung ?em.
The sentiment behind Pacquiao?s move didn?t surprise me, because Donaire?s support for the Aquino family and hence, the Liberals, has been vocal, often literally so.
But if Manny made a move like that in U.S. politics, the timing of the defection might seem less noteworthy than the direction.
Heck, among athletes in U.S. politics, even the blacks are Republicans. Joe Montana is a Republican. Steve Young is a Republican. The Republicans have had J.C. Watts, Jack Kemp, Jim Bunning, Steve Largent, etc., etc, and the Democrats have had Bill Bradley. Period.
The world of sports is surely the most right-leaning of U.S. institutions, with the possible exception of the military. It is the focal point for so many rites of masculine passage that it has become the national exchange for those rites.
There was a liberal insurgency in this arena in the 1970s, when iconoclasts like Jim Bouton (Ball Four), Dave Meggyesy and Peter Gent (North Dallas Forty) challenged the sports status quo. But the Right clearly reasserted its authority in the 1980s and 1990s, when fans repeatedly backed management over unions in pro sports labor disputes.
Defy that mind set at your peril, especially at the endorsements end. Tiger Woods? Golf! ?Nuf said.
But the Philippines seemed to take Pacquiao?s switch in stride. It?s partly because shifting to the majority party is more commonplace there. Manny ran as a liberal in 2006, after all. So the lack of controversy is partly something Americans wouldn?t understand.
But it?s also partly that the beatific Pacquiao can do no wrong. Either way, it seems refreshing.
