[LOCKED] Urban Meyer Endorses Presidential Candidate

I'm going into this knowing full well that I'm very much [not] toeing the "no politics" line*, so I'm going to actually somewhat try to stay away from the actual politics with this and just focus on the fact.

Urban Meyer has endorsed a political candidate. LINK

This comes on the heals of him saying it was "in appropriate" for a football coach to take such a public stance on politics. I personally think people have a right to say as much or as little as they want publically (that's not saying it belongs here, this place has rules), that's a personal decision, in a vacuum, I have no issue with Meyer endorsing someone. But it's really difficult for me to see the benefit for Meyer here outside of maybe getting his candidate a few more votes (in my opinion, former coach Jim Tressel's opinion on politics likely still holds more weight with OSU fans due to how he's perceived by their fans).

Now, a few things. This is a bit of a safe endorsement for Meyer. He's endorsing the guy from his state, that has is at least on the correct side of the right/left debate for many of the states he recruits. He's also endorsing perhaps the most moderate candidate in the field (this isn't an endorsement of that being a good or bad thing, just a historical fact of this candidates stances), and also a candidate that hasn't really angered anyone to the extent that every other candidate has. In essense, this is a very non-offensive candidate to endorse that may be perceived as good in his own state.

But again, where's the benefit? From my experience, taking a strong stance on politics outside of politics rarely has benefit. People that agree with you just agree with you and move on. People that disagree with you, which are potentially anyone from recruits, recruit's parents, to boosters and fans, may hold it against you to some degree. My feeling is that it's very little in the long run, but really, people are quite crazy about politics. 

So I think it's an interesting thing to do, especially given the fact that he had earlier said it wasn't appropriate for his job (despite my belief that people have every right to endorse someone, I tend to agree that it's to a head coach's benefit to not discuss politics, or in other words, it isn't appropriate for the end goal of his job). The fact that it is likely someone on the opposite side of the aisle than most of his players and player's parents is perhaps interesting.

Discuss?

*Apparently I've been using the idiom "toe the line" incorrectly for much of my life.

MOD EDIT - thread locked. The search for nice things has moved on. - LSA