I am sure that with George W. being a former owner of a major league franchise, candidates are going to be beating dead horses with all the sports talk they will throw out to be liked by sports fans. During the 2000 election, Al Gore plunked then-Tigers’ utility man Robert Fick with one of his BP pitches, and no one will ever forget the Cinci mayor’s embarrassing attempt at lobbing a ball in the general direction of home plate. New on the list is Kansas Senator Sam Brownback.

At the Wisconsin Republican Party convention, trying to appeal to the good folks of Wisconsin, Brownback broke out the sports reference to knock em dead.

“This is fundamental blocking and tackling,” he said. “This is your line in football. If you don’t have a line, how many passes can Peyton Manning complete? Greatest quarterback, maybe, in NFL history.”

If this guy isn’t smart enough to tailor his analogies to his audience, I’m already saying he does not possess the BS skills needed to win the presidency.

“That’s really bad,” he said. “That will go down in history. I apologize.”

His apology brought a smattering of applause and laughter. He tried to recover, saying former Packer Bart Starr may be the greatest of all time, but the crowd was still restless.

“Let’s take Favre then,” Brownback said. “The Packers are great. I’m sorry. How many passes does he complete without a line?”

“All of them!” more than one person yelled from the back.

“I’m not sure how I recover from this,” Brownback said. “My point is we’ve got to rebuild the family. I’ll get off this.”

If by “get off this”, he means his campaign, I totally agree. Me thinks Brownback just pulled a ‘Howard Dean’… only Brownback only screwed himself with the sports fans while Dean pretty much went down in history as the biggest nut job to ever run.

• Football reference trips up GOP hopeful (AP)