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The making of political history came closer on Friday, in case you missed it, when Republican presidential nominee John McCain unveiled Arkansas Governor Sarah Palin, the Tootsie of the Frozen North, as his running mate.
This has nothing to do with her being a woman, runner-up in Miss Alaska 1984, or a devotee of caribou hot dogs, heart-warming as these biographical details may be. The historic element I have in mind about this feisty mother of five is this. She is the first candidate on a US presidential ticket whose CV includes a stint as a TV sports presenter.
In the late 1980s, she kept viewers of local Anchorage station KTUU informed about college basketball, which she played aggressively herself, and other equally riveting sports. Yet even that isn't the end of her sportiness.
The woman who may wake on 5 November to find herself a firework-induced coronary from leading the free world named her first born Track in tribute to her love of athletics
Yet my central point no more concerns Sarah's demented taste in baby names (and the other four? Don't ask) than her love for sport or her student career playing it. Recent decades are positively stuffed, after all, with talented sports people who became political figures.
Idi Amin was Ugandan light-heavyweight boxing champ through the 1950s, for example, while our own Seb Coe spent a little time in the House of Commons. He never reached the Cabinet, but another two-time Olympic gold medallist who did was Valerie Borzov, the sprint double winner of 1972 for the USSR who became Ukraine's sports minister - the job Pele performed in Brazil before the temptation to witter on incessantly about penile dysfunction proved too potent to resist.
There are a myriad of other examples of sports stars becoming politicians, most likely because the same tunnel-visioned psychosis is required to succeed in both, and yet there is not a single precedent of a sportscaster achieving the same metamorphosis.
If one of our own lot were going to manage it, my preference would be Richard Keys, the Missing Link of Sky Sports, who is as expert at spouting meaningless gibberish as government minister Hazel Blears.
However, his requirement to attend the daily tea party in Regents Park rules him out. Des Lynam might have been good once, but it's too late now for him just as it was too late for former Olympic sprinter Ming Campbell. John Inverdale has the self-adoration that made Tony Blair such a wow, but struggles to synthesizing sincerity, let alone humility, while Gabby Logan would baulk at having to cloak her good looks with the librarian double header of tedious specs and hair-up-in-a-bun. Steve Rider is too bland, Channel 4 Racing's Derek Thompson too thick, Hazel Irvine too Scottish, and Clare Balding's too clever. As for Jim Rosenthal . . . well, let's just say Jim's Jim, and we'll leave it there.
To its eternal shame, British television has never produced a sportscaster capable of making the transition to political leadership. And before you write in to complain, I haven't forgotten a former co-leader of the Greens.
Indeed, if I were Barack Obama, I'd hire him without delay, and send him on a nationwide tour from sea to shining sea as a warning of what can befall a human mind when a sports presenter aims at global domination. "My fellow Americans, behold," would be the text of Obama's pithiest oration, "David Icke."
Faldo's happy with his mirror image
From the vehement outrage of last week's denials it was evidently clear that Ian Poulter had been quietly informed by Nick Faldo that he would be one of the captain's Ryder Cup wild cards.
So, apparently, it proved yesterday when Faldo announced that Poulter and Paul Casey are in, leaving Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie omitted.
Let no one accuse Faldo of sentimentalism. Two years ago Clarke's performance so soon after his wife's death was an unforgettable display of stoicism, while dear old Monty is probably the finest Ryder Cup player most of us have ever seen. Whether the thrill of battle renewed would have revived their form we will now never know.
What it is about Poulter that attracts Faldo is hard to imagine. A brash, rude, willfully arrogant loner perpetually feuding with his colleagues - it's very hard to see the appeal.
Unless, of course, he reminds Faldo of somebody.
'Popeye' Murray must stay strong to get revenge on muscle man Nadal
The last time Andy Murray celebrated winning from two sets behind with that cocky muscle-flexing gesture, after his stirring defeat of Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon, he was destroyed in his next match by the most muscle-bound of them all, Rafael Nadal.
Murray was up to his Popeye tricks again in the US Open on Saturday night after reprising the Lazarus act to beat the Austrian Jurgen Melzer in five. But this time, thankfully, he isn't scheduled to meet Nadal until he has won two more matches and reached his first Grand Slam semi-final.
What saw him through his latest encounter was his mental resilience and phenomenal physical conditioning. And to think he used to go down with cramp during the warm-up. His next opponent, Swiss 10th seed Stanislas Wawrinka, will be a struggle. But if he can sneak through that and an easier-looking quarter, he would face Nadal with the conviction that he has the beating of him.
Assuming that this confidence proved misplaced, merely reaching that semi would hoist him to No4 in the world. And as one of only four players with any chance of winning this title, that's precisely where he belongs.
Meanwhile, the women's event is infinitely less predictable. Of the serious contenders only Elena Dementieva can be confidently ruled out, because I've backed her heavily, but logic suggests that whichever sister wins the forthcoming Williams quarter-final will also take the tournament.
Cheekie chappie Bullard is a Seventies throwback
What had been an unusually tedious football Sunday, with Chelsea misfiring against Spurs and Liverpool so toothless at Aston Villa, was rescued by Fabio Capello's announcement of his squad for England's forthcoming World Cup qualifiers. His selection of Jimmy Bullard is inspired.
The gloriously unpompous Bullard is a kind of anti-Lampard, and precisely what old duffers like me want in an England midfielder. He's cut the hair, but the cheeky chappie bustle and insouciant creativity place him unmistakably in a Kings Road boozer in 1975. Here is the spiritual heir of Tony Currie, Stan Bowles and all those Seventies artists who played for the love of playing.
I hope Capello starts with him in both games. Even if not, perhaps Fulham will be less blasé about retaining the life, heart and soul of their team.
