I don’t think I’ll ever really understand why so many people look up to people who appear on TV and in the movies. A bunch of people get paid to act and, for some reason, the electorate turns to them in search of leadership.
I’m not saying celebrities shouldn’t be part of the political sphere; I think everyone should be engaged in politics, regardless of their profession. I am saying, however, that that it’s bizarre that the populace has given power to Ronald Reagan, Clint Eastwood, the short guy from Love Boat, Jesse Ventura, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others, all of whom have won elections based on their skills as entertainers.
It was also disturbing before the war in Iraq began, when news outlets turned to Janeane Garofalo, Susan Sarandon, and Mike Farrell for critiques of Bush’s military policies about as often as lawmakers, cabinet officials, scholars, and military personnel.
This is not a positive development. We have dedicated Americans who have devoted their entire adult lives to public service, but when we need political leadership, we turn to actors?
With Schwarzenegger’s success in California, other celebrities are being seriously courted to run for public office, despite having no experience in government. Recently, rumors swirled, for example, that comedian Dennis Miller was being wooed by the California GOP to run for Senate next year. I’ve also seen rumors for years that Ben Affleck, a die-hard Democrat, may be running for Congress sometime down the line.
And now I hear (from Aaron at naw) that satirist Al Franken is mulling a run for the Senate.
Franken, Bill O’Reilly’s arch nemesis and author of the best-selling Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, admitted this week that he’s considering a challenge to Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in 2008 in his home state of Minnesota.
“It’s a long way away, five years away,” Franken told a Minneapolis reporter this week. “It might be crazy. I might not be the best candidate. Part of this is seeing what happens next year and what direction things are going.”
I’m a fan of Franken’s work, but I have to admit I’m disturbed by the ongoing trend of electing celebrities to public office because they’re celebrities. Granted, Franken is not the typical Hollywood star. He’s a Harvard graduate (class of ’73) and served as a Fellow with Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy.
That said, a nation that feels compelled to turn to celebrities to lead is a nation with serious political problems.