London_Calling writes:
> What no one’s mentioned Jerry Springer ? Former
> polititian, keen to get back into office…it’s going to
> happen.
Well, no, it’s not. Just because someone claims that they’re going to go into politics doesn’t mean that they can get anyone to vote for them (or even to nominate them).
Sam Stone writes:
> I for one am ecstatic that there aren’t many Hollywood
> people in politics. They already have WAY too much
> influence.
>
> Of all the possible special interest groups I want
> representing me, Hollywood has to come in just about dead
> last. These people are often poorly educated (if they
> have degrees at all, it’s often from some actor’s college
> somewhere, and many don’t even have high school
> diplomas), yet they have huge egos from being surrounded
> by ass-kissers all day long. This leads them to believe
> that what they have to say is somehow important, and that
> their opinions are worth more than the average citizen’s.
> Now throw in their complete lack of perspective from
> living in the fantasyland of Hollywood.
>
> Couple that with inordinate media attention so their half
> baked ideas get far more air time than they deserve, and
> heaping stacks of money and free time, and you have a
> major problem in a democracy. We worry about the country
> being run by Tobacco executives and Auto executives, but
> at least these people tend to be competant and educated.
> I’m much more worried about the country being controlled
> by Rosie O’Donnell and Alec Baldwin.
While I agree with you that I don’t want actors going into politics, I’m not sure that they’re the absolute worse people I could ever imagine in politics. What about musicians or athletes? - equal amounts of huge egos, poor education, and lack of perspective about what the world is like.
I’m more worried about the country being controlled by tobacco and auto executives (and other representatives of big business) just because their work tends to be behind the scenes. Actors at least have the decency to do their advocacy of stupid causes in public. The business executives are the ones in the smoke-filled backrooms, talking to politicians, making big donations to candidates, and slanting TV shows to their own tastes.
I think the American public (and other politicians) have mostly rejected the actors who’ve tried to have political influence. The actors who have most mouthed off in public about their causes are not the ones who got into office. Look once again at the list of actors who achieved major political office. These are not people who were known during their acting career for their strong political views. Could you have guessed during the run of Love Boat that the one person in it who would run for office was Fred Grandy, and could you have guessed that it would be as a Republican? Can you tell me what about Sonny Bono’s career would have made you think that he would be a Republican? (Actually, Bono only got elected as a Representative by accident. He was chosen by the Republicans to run in a district that they thought was a sure loss, but the Republicans did so well in 1994 that he won.) Can you point out the crucial roles of Shirley Temple and of Jane Alexander that made the first one a Republican appointee and the second one a Democratic appointee? With one exception (which I’ll get to) the actors who’ve succeeded in office were not generally known for their political beliefs and were already well past their career peaks.
I’m dubious about the claims that Rosie O’Donnell or Ophrah Winfrey are influential. There are many people who hate them and constantly denounce their shows. Jerry Springer is even more hated (and I don’t know how I’d classify his politics, since basically he’s a whore). Or consider the most famous example of all of an actor/actress who has publicly mouthed off about politics: Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda has never influenced anyone toward her views. If anything, her rants turned people away from her political positions and hurt her career. There are still lots of people around (and some of them are on this MB) who seem to have nothing better to do than fulminate about how much they hate something that Fonda did 28 years ago.
The one actor who can be said to be influential is Ronald Reagan, and even he was well past his (rather small) peak as an actor when he first ran for office. Reagan’s political career was essentially made by his work in the '50’s as a spokesman for General Electric, where he was giving speeches that were similar in philosophy to his later political positions. GE shlepped him around to meetings, introduced him to all the right people, and (whether they intended it or not) turned him into a credible politician.
johnson writes:
> Lastly, think about it–do you really want to vote for
> Alec Baldwin or Angelica Huston? Enough to make Moriarty
> look like an East coast elite Rockefeller Republican type.
Did you bother to read what everyone else wrote about Moriarty? Moriarty is not a liberal. If anything, he’s a rather hard-core conservative. (To be fair though, he’s basically a nut that most conservatives would reject too.)