Egos, Eggheads and Erections in the Steel Cage of American Politics: A History of the Celebrity...
Egos, Eggheads and Erections in the Steel Cage of American Politics: A History of the Celebrity Candidate
by Mike Edison
I want to be President of the United States. In fact I have already written my acceptance speech. The first thing I’ll be doing is announcing that I am bringing back Prohibition.
After I’ve had my little joke, I’ll let everyone know what I actually plan to do is legalize all drugs, nationalize the brothels and mandate a life-sentence for any captain of industry who is complicit in polluting the planet. Yeah, I’m a one-term kind of guy. But it’s not my time. Not yet.
This year brings us the usual Fall harvest of liars, cheats and whores, plus an over-hyped bumper crop of creationist kooks, gay-bashers, progressive paranoiacs, fear-mongers and reality-stars-in-training. But what we seem to be missing is that rarified strain of political beast: the candidate that was famous before he or she ran for office.
So today, instead of piling on the anti-auto-eroticist, the wrestling promoter and the facial-hair fiasco, I thought I would rock and regale you with bedtime stories of the heroes and villains of yesteryear, the bright lights who have all done their part to make America the whoopee cushion of global politics.
Actors are egomaniacs, so I guess it isn’t surprising that so many of them have had the calling to serve: Clint Eastwood became mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, the dude from the “Love Boat” became a US congressman.
As you well know, early leading the pack of bad actors turned politicians is President Ronald Reagan, previously famous for co-starring with Bonzo the Chimp. But you have got to hand it to incomprehensible strongman Arnold Schwarzenegger for proving once and for all that you can never underestimate the stupidity of the American public. What qualifications did he have? He was Reagan’s hand-picked something or other in charge of physical education, and even then you knew he was a pig, a juiced-up, stoned, ass-grabbing ape.
Oddly, Arnold’s alien-hunts-humans-in-the-jungle opus Predator launched the political campaigns of two other thespians. Pro-wrestler Jesse Ventura became a credit to grapplers everywhere when he became the Governor of Minnesota, running on the remains of Ross Perot’s Reform Party and, and among other libertarian follies, advocating the legalization of prostitution. (It should be noted here that Minnesotans are not without a sense of humor — in 2008, after a contentious Gore v. Bush recount and court battle, former “Saturday Night Live” funnyman Al Franken became anointed as their new bleeding heart US Senator.)
The lesser-known Sonny Landham, who played Billy in Predator, spent 31 months in a federal pen for making threatening calls to his ex-wife, a conviction that was eventually overturned on appeal. He ran for Governor of Kentucky in the Republican Party in 2003, railing against the Kentucky Family Court, convinced that it was run for the benefit of lawyers rather than families or children, and demanding mandatory sentences for men or women who bring false charges against their spouses. His political ambition was monkey-wrenched when it was revealed that he had a brief career as a porn star in the 1970s (who could forget Hot Shots?).
And then there was tough guy Tom Laughlin, famous for playing Billy Jack, the Native American kung-fu master who battled bikers on the big screen in drive-in classics like Born Losers, but who was ultimately best captured in the Mad Magazine satire (“Billy Jock”) where everyone fell asleep waiting for him to get angry enough to fight. He ran for President as both a Democrat (1992) and a Republican (2004), never making much of a showing in the one or two primaries for which he qualified.
Comedian Pat Paulsen, formerly a star on the “Smother Brothers Comedy Hour,” ran for President six times beginning in 1968, mostly based on lame jokes and double-talk.
“I’ve upped my standards,” he declared: “Now, up yours.” In 1996 he finished second in the New Hampshire primary. He collected 921 votes — bested only by the winner, Bill Clinton, who pulled in 76,754. Paulsen died in 1997, but according to his website, he ran again in 2008. His son, Monty, has announced he’ll be seeking the Oval Office in 2012.
Comedian and actor Al Lewis, best known for playing batty old vampire Grandpa on the Munsters, and by far the most charming of this lot, ran a great campaign for governor of New York at the age of 88. He had a long history of political protests, beginnging at age 17 in 1927 (!!!), working against the convictions of Sacco and Venzetti, the Italian immigrants framed for murder. Later he joined anti-war rallies, and marched for Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers. Though he described himself as an anarchist, he was the Green Party’s candidate in 1998 (against the wishes of some upstate party members who said he was “too Jewish”), espousing a pro-marijuana agenda and insisting that he be listed on the ballot as “Grandpa Al Lewis,” arguing that this was how his future constituents knew him. His request was handed back to him by the Board of Elections. Despite this scoffing setback, his total of 52,533 votes topped the number needed to secure a place on the ballot (50,000), besting left-wing wonk Ralph Nader’s previous effort for the Greens, and hence guaranteeing the Party an automatic ballot line for the next four years.
Jerry Springer is the oddball of this group, and probably the only true visionary, moving in the opposite direction, from politics to in-your-face fame: He was the mayor of Cleveland, the thirty-third biggest city in the United States, and rose to become the standard bearer for sleazoid television. And why not? Sex and politics go together like soup and a sandwich. When Bill and Hillary first came to office there was a feeling of Hey, finally a first couple that actually still had sex. Not with each other, but at least they were both interested in women. (OK, that was a cheap shot — everyone knows Hillary is way too uptight to be gay.)
But no matter what strange bedfellows it makes, politics is ultimately a cocksucking business, so it is no surprise when professionals get in the ring. To wit, porn star Mary Carey, the fetching ingenue and star of Filthy Whore and Lesbian Big Boob Bangaroo II, who ran in the 2003 California gubernatorial rat race, which started with a recall, and eventually delivered the Terminator to high office. Unfortunately, past the It-Gets-Weirder-Every-Day news flashes she enjoyed at first, no one gave a good goddam, even in a state known for its loosey-goosy value system and flagging moral inventory. Still, she placed tenth in a field of 135, right behind child-star-turned-satire candidate Gary Coleman, who collected 14,242 votes, not a bad showing for a D-list reality show wannabe who wasn’t tall enough to ride Space Mountain (rest his soul), and Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, who scored 17,458 votes — representing a less-than-rousing one-half of one percent of all ballots cast.
To see porno-turned-politics on a truly professional level, we need to travel all the way to Italy and the insatiable Cicciolina, who won a seat in the Italian Parliament in 1987, and would continue to make hardcore porn films while in office. In 1990, during the build-up to the first Gulf War, she selflessly offered to “make love with Saddam Hussein to achieve peace in the Middle East.”
Incidentally, Mary Carey ran for Governor again in 2006, announcing her candidacy soon after acquiring brand new teeth and super-deluxe breast implants. She dropped out early to take care of her mother, who had attempted suicide by jumping off a building, but she still harbors political ambitions and hopes to be President one day. Which is, as stated ever–so-coyly by Wikipedia, “contingent upon her reaching the age of 35, the minimum age requirement for United States presidents.” She’ll turn that trick in 2015.
Thanks to a slew of late-inning snoozers, Norman Mailer’s literary legacy is still swinging in the balance, but in 1969 he was in top form, and probably the smartest man ever to run for mayor of New York, on a double-bill with Jimmy Breslin, who was running for President of the City Council. It was an odd pairing, considering Mailers’s hyper-intellectual proclivity for scrawling two-page paragraphs of spectacular, pyrotechnic but ultimately confusing prose, and Breslin, an old school, round-heeled city beat journalist, probably the best newspaperman in the history of New York City and therefore the world, who could find a story just walking down the street, and whose style was model of brevity and quickness, all lightning jabs before the knock-out punch. On a good day Breslin could make Hemingway’s most-pugilistic efforts seem like a Yes concert.
That was a classic New York City story of blue-collar angst colliding with left-wing idealism, but their campaign, fueled by booze and anger, was fatally marred by infighting and the weight of Mailer’s humongous ego. In the end, their admirable “No More Bullshit” platform — unfortunately unprintable in the newspapers that covered the election — earned them no more than a sliver of the vote.
Better than these two, though, I’d have to rate Hunter Thompson’s campaign for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, as the best-ever journalist-on-the-ballot bid. Demanding decriminalization of drugs and the re-naming of Aspen to “Fat City” to deter investors, Thompson shaved his head and began calling the crew-cut wearing Republican running against him “my long-haired opponent.” He lost by a narrow margin. One can only dream of the ripple effect “Sheriff Hunter Thompson” would have had on law enforcement everywhere.
Off the top of my head, I can think of almost as many politicians who play instruments with TV talk show bands as part of a “See, I Can Have Fun, Too” strategy as I can musical fops who pose as political provocateurs. Who can forget Bill Clinton’s ape-like Blues Brothers routine, performed for toothy talk show host Arsenio Hall, who shucked and jived along with the future prez as if he were the reincarnation of Big Jay McNeely?But at least Bill was a populist Southern Democrat, a white politician who was a friend to black Americans, and deserved some respect — if not for his thoroughly mediocre sax playing, then for his big-tent politics.
More recently we’ve had to endure bass-thumping Right-to-Lifer, former preacher Mike Huckabee, who is, honestly (just watch the tapes), a far more competent musician than the aforementioned 60s leftovers. But what I want to know is: What the fuck was he doing on Leno, sitting in like he was mutherhumping Duck Dunn? Huckabee hates women, hates gays, hates minorities, represents a group that has come down on the wrong side of every single shred of civil rights legislation since Lincoln freed the slaves, and yet there was Kevin Eubanks, guitar player and leader of the Tonight Show band, highly regarded in the African-American community as a purveyor of smooth-jazz and all that is urban and hip, gleefully playing along and high-fiving the fuck-faced Huckabee. In other words, Uncle Tomming it for Boss Leno and the NBC suits. Guilty by association is the rest of the band who shilled for this douchebag.
John Kerry also plays guitar and was once in a band, but nobody cared.
Generally speaking, beyond the blather, musicians don’t run for office, but there are a few exceptions. Sonny Bono (not to be confused with the other, sillier Bono, who has bigger world-saving ambitions), had a career as a US congressman from California which came to a sudden halt when he skied face-first into a tree, taking to the grave forever the answer to the musical question: How come a guy who used to wear tie-die and fringe and make hippy-dippy pop music — and presumably equally sticky love to Cher, the dyslexic daughter of an Armenian refugee and a Cherokee Indian — turned into a raging Republican?
Kinky Friedman’s run for George Bush’s old stomping ground, the Texas governor’s office, seemed to have legs, at least for a little while, running on the slogan “How Hard Could It Be?” But he came out fourth place in a crowd of six.
The most entertaining of them all was former Dead Kennedy’s frontman Jello Biafra, who ran for mayor of San Francisco in 1979, finishing a close fourth behind Sister Boom Boom, the drag queen nun. Part of his new-world utopia would have required businessmen to wear clown suits to work. Twenty-one years later, a jury found him liable for fraud and malice and ordered him to pay $200,000 in overdue royalties to his former bandmates. Inexplicably, donning a clown suit was not part of the settlement.
And then there were the animals. Mickey Mouse has always faired well, most recently receiving 400 write-in votes in Florida in the 2004 election, making him complicit in stealing the White House from Al Gore. Marvel Comics anti-hero Howard the Duck’s ’76 bid was a classic. But the star of this menagerie was clearly Pigasus, a cute pink porker whom the Yippies ran for president in 1968. His candidacy came to an abrupt end when he was arrested protesting the Democratic National convention in Chicago that year. (Seriously, they arrested a pig, you can look it up.) Admittedly, Pigasus was an unknown, but one can only ponder the tidal flood of voters a superstar like Arnold Ziffle could have oinked and snorted into the ballot box.
Mike Edison is the former publisher of High Times, the former editor-in-chief of Screw magazine, and a professional wrestler of no small repute. He is the author of 28 pornographic novels and the outrageous memoir I Have Fun Everywhere I Go — Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World.