My mother watches Fox News. She asks these questions to bait me.


Thing is, I like Lynn Swann. I was 8 years old when he made those circus catches in Super Bowl X, and his performance helped turn me into a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.


He’s a good sideline reporter for ABC’s College Football, too. I heard him in person when he spoke at my wife’s college graduation in 1994. He was impressive — smart, articulate and engaging.


Now, of course, Swann is running for governor of Pennsylvania on the Republican ticket, set to take on Fast Eddie Rendell in November. It will be a clash of the titans; Swann’s got the star power to match Rendell, and then some.


But politically, it’s hard to know if there’s any there there.


For Swann, wrote analysts G. Terry Madonna and Michael Young in a recent op-ed, has shown “little mastery of the complexities of state government and has provided little in the way of policy prescriptions to the problems of state government.” Swann’s campaign has stuck to feel-good generalities, and when faced with specific questions, has tended to say something along the lines of, “We’re working on it.”


What does Lynn Swann think? We’re working on it.


That doesn’t fill me with confidence. But I suppose it’s fitting that a former football player should serve as the poster boy for a type of politics inspired by Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis’s famous maxim, “Just win, baby.”


Because make no mistake, there’s one reason and one reason only that Pennsylvania Republicans are so excited about Lynn Swann: They think he can win.


Can he govern? What does that have to do with anything? To be fair, this isn’t just a Republican phenomenon. Bob Casey Jr. is running for Rick Santorum’s U.S. Senate seat, and polls show him way ahead. But I don’t know a single Democrat/liberal/progressive/whatever who is actually excited about the Casey candidacy. They might hold their nose and vote for him come November — most would vote for Mephistopheles himself over Santorum — but they won’t be giving money, and they won’t be working on Casey’s behalf.


Because their perception, and I think it’s correct, is that the Democratic establishment wants Casey because they think he can win. How is he going to change things? It doesn’t matter.


Except that some people think it does.


That’s why there’s such a groundswell of support for Chuck Pennacchio, Casey’s opponent in the Democratic primary.


Pennacchio may not be as telegenic as Casey, and he doesn’t have the name recognition, but he does have core beliefs that weren’t crafted via focus group. He is authentic. And that’s something you simply can’t say about Casey — or, for that matter, Lynn Swann.


Tell me, how much input do you think Swann himself might have in crafting a Swann budget? What are his legislative priorities?


But see, it isn’t about that.


What it’s about is the fact that Swann somehow, conveniently, is a social conservative who opposes abortion. It’s about Swann’s backstory as a successful broadcaster and an even more successful football player. And let’s be honest; it’s about the fact that Swann is African-American, and may help the GOP appeal to a constituency that tends to vote Democratic.


From a strategic standpoint, he’s the perfect candidate. So long as winning is what really matters.


For while Swann will run as an “outsider,” we all know any Swann administration would be replete with the same old inside crowd. With Swann — as was the case with President Bush — you’re not so much electing a leader as you are electing the party that will lead.


Ideas? Don’t worry, they’re working on that. They’re working on everything. In the meantime, did we mention he opposes abortion? And that he’s famous?


It’s Lynn Swann, man. Isn’t that enough?


And for some, I suspect, it probably is.




Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.