I think I actually did vote for Paulson one year. Could have been '72 or '76.
(remembering '72 and '76) You coulda done worse, like the eventual nominees.
Gracie Allen ran for President in 1940, as a candidate for the Surprise Party:
It would have been something, seeing how Gracie would have handled Hitler and Stalin.
I was around for Mr. Paulsen’s first run - it was hilarious.
My mom voted for him once.
Eddie Cantor started it with the short Your Next President! in 1932. It was written “with”, meaning by, his radio show’s head writer David Freedmen.
W. C. Fields put out a now rare and very collectible collection of political pieces called Fields for President in 1940.
The Burns and Allen show made Gracie’s politics a running theme and they also did a short book in 1940, How to Become President.
Though it’s not very expensive today, the really obscure one is The Candidate, a “photographic interview with the Honorable James Durante” for his 1952 television show.
Paulsen’s book was in the 1968 campaign, Pat Paulsen for President.
Fields for President was reprinted in 1971 and an easy-to-get today paperback edition sold better in 1972.
Colbert didn’t invent flogging a show for ratings. He’s in a long tradition.
All the links include pictures of the original covers.
I’m imagining her inviting both to the White House for a zany evening of mishaps and misunderstandings while George watches on a closed circuit set in the War Room. Rochester does a cameo from The Jack Benny Show but is introduced as Winston Churchill. Finally Gracie asks Hitler to take Stalin’s picture, and as the camera clicks Gracie cuts his throat in one well rehearsed fluid movement while Rochester empties a shotgun into Stalin (which kills him but turns out to be an accident; Rochester didn’t know it was loaded). Then Gracie yells at Ronnie for not putting out the old rug like she’d told him to and thus getting blood on her carpet.
Then Bill Goodwin saunters amiably in to say, "Say, Gracie, did you know that Carnation Evap–omigod what is going on in here?!"
S. S. Van Dine wrote a little ditty called The Gracie Allen Murder Case, which was made into a movie starring Eddie Cantor. Whoops, wrong candidate. And it came out in 1939 about the time of her campaign.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s son Elliott signed his name to a long series of ghostwritten mysteries featuring his mother as a detective in the White House. Eve, if you haven’t read them, you should. Good period fun and backstage White House gossip.
But apparently the White House was the bloodiest spot in America during Roosevelt’s stay there.
I have the entire set of Moving Picture Girls books, a 1910s series by the Bobbsy Twins author, based loosely on the Gish sisters–they act in photoplays *and *solve crimes!