Note to the capture: George Clooney arrives for the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) awards at the Odeon Leicester Square in central London February 19, 2006. REUTERS/Toby Melville
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If only George Clooney would run for president. John Patterson sizes up the star's political prospects
Saturday February 25, 2006
Ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger became Der Kali-Führer in 2003, I've been wondering if the Democrats could ever find an equivalent figure to run for office. And suddenly it seemed so obvious: If Mr Freeze can run on his celebrity-recognition quotient alone, with a campaign platform containing no discernible political ideas whatsoever, then surely Batman himself can run for the White House.
That's right: George Clooney for president. Far-fetched? Well, let's run some comparisons. It's been a while since we had our last actor president, and, whatever liberals may think of Reagan, celebrity earns you extra points with the public and knowing how to deliver one's lines is an asset in politics, so Clooney already has one up on the verbal dyslexic currently calling the shots in Washington.
Clooney has one divorce in his background, but no scandal beyond clipping David O Russell round the ear on the set of Three Kings, which is the kind of thing that plays well in the Red states - much like shooting lawyers in the face. His youthful indiscretions pale against the current incumbent's binge-drinking, DUI convictions, perpetual bailings-out, not to mention draft-dodging. Clooney might merely be expected to apologise for Revenge Of The Killer Tomatoes and for his never-released debut movie, co-starring the louchely Kennedyesque Charlie Sheen.
He'd be the first single president, well, since Michael Douglas in The American President, which would make him a bit like the skirt-hound Kennedy, though Clooney appears not to be the almost neurotic priapist JFK was. One of Kennedy's more famous conquests was Angie Dickinson ("the most unforgettable 60 seconds of my life," was her post-coital verdict), better known as the original Mrs Danny Ocean, so there's a whiff of that retro-Camelot glamour for you right there. Like Reagan, Kennedy and Clinton, he'd probably be a grating presence to a good half of the American electorate, but it didn't kill them and it wouldn't kill him.
Politically, a Clooney presidency would probably strive to return sanity to the national debate. The American right has long smeared Clooney as just another loopy Hollywood liberal, but there's no evidence that he's anything but an old-fashioned American centrist. His political movies, particularly this Friday's Syriana and Good Night, And Good Luck, are hardly radical agitprop. They (and Three Kings and Clooney's TV remake of Fail Safe) may have the slightly worthy air of civics lessons, but they certainly suggest the guy is engaged with his times. A good-looking, independently minded, lapsed-Catholic, clean-and-sober actor versus a bought-and-paid-for, dry-drunk fundamentalist and four-decade failure of a human glove-puppet?
Voters, the choice is clear!
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