Informed Speculation

Some concepts are just inherently funny…Warren Beatty as a person is pretty damn hilarious; Warren Beatty as a politician is near hysterical; and Mark Steyn writing about Warren Beatty the politician brings one dangerously close to death by laughter:

…”I don’t want to run for governor,” [Beatty] said the other day, making it sound like he’s interested in the role but he won’t audition. He’s certainly in the right party: The Democrats have already taken on most of the characteristics of a bad Hollywood project — no ideas, script full of ancient cliches, but if you can get the right star to commit to it we just might make this thing fly. And, though he’s never run for office before, Beatty has the crucial ingredient: name recognition. All over California, women are going: “Warren Beatty? Oh, yeah, right, now I remember. That guy I had sex with in the late ’60s.”

The ”will Warren run?” story crops up every other election cycle. Last time it was back in 2000, when Al Gore was felt by some (about 300 million or so) to lack charisma and there was talk of Beatty throwing his hat into the presidential ring. He wanted to run because he believed American politics was turning into a plutocracy in which the highest office in the land was put up for sale to a handful of privileged sons of wealthy men, like Al Gore and George W. Bush.

Beatty, by contrast, has come up the hard way, working his way through the long, hard daily grind of Natalie Wood, Leslie Caron, Brigitte Bardot, Cher, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, Isabelle Adjani . . . He can sympathize with the underclass: He knows how it feels to hit rock bottom — apparently, it was Madonna’s in ”Dick Tracy.” He understands what it’s like to try to make ends meet. Crucially for California, he’s sensitive to the needs of immigrants: He appreciates the difficulties European art-house actresses have in finding bankable Hollywood stars prepared to go to bed with them.

It goes without saying you should read the whole thing…