If us Californians have started to overdose on Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, complete with his penchant to quote lines referring to his own movies so much that he seems more overexposed than an overweight sunbather at a nudist colony, brace yourselves:
More and more political powerbrokers of both parties have no problem dreaming of plucking the stars from Hollywoodland to run for office so they could get in power and pluck the voters.
Or course, over the year’s we’ve seen Hollywood types who have acquitted themselves quite well (better than the lawyers who seem to dominate politics) such as Senator George Murphy, UN Ambassador Shirley Temple Black, Ronald Reagan etc. The jury is out on Arnold — but polls show the jury is frowning…
Today it isn’t mere talk of Democrat Warren “Dick Tracy” Beatty challenging Arnold in his now-uphill re-election bid — because the sparks are already starting to fly. So Beatty — who has made noises about political office before — is running. Or IS HE?
And now, if this is starting to sound like a news parody, BRACE YOURSELVES there is THIS from the Washington Post:
If you liked him as Bennifer . . . you’ll love him as Benator!
That’s the hot new idea being tossed around by Virginia Democrats, who are desperately searching for a big name to challenge the reelection bid of rising GOP star Sen. George Allen next year, now that outgoing Gov. Mark Warner has ducked out.
Why, who should happen to be pondering a move to Thomas Jefferson country but a certain square-jawed media magnet with a taste for liberal politics and millions to spend on it . . . Ben Affleck ! Star of “Gigli” and the J.Lo tab romance, now happily settled with “Alias” star Jennifer Garner.
The couple, expecting their first child, have been shopping for real estate around Charlottesville. British tabloids claim it’s a done deal; we will only go so far as to report that they checked out at least one country estate a few weeks ago.
We have a great deal of respect for Sabato (who had a great track record during the last presidential election in his Crystal Ball pieces) so if he says it’s so, it’s so:
Virginia Dreaming has replaced the California Dreaming which culiminated in the Nightmare of a Governor in Sacramento who loves to quote his famous movie lines until they ooze out of every orifice of California voters’ bodies.
At least Ben won’t have any quotable lines to quote…
UPDATE: Pundit Guy:”I can’t wait for his first appearance with Bill O’Reilly.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.