Why Not Robert Redford?
Here's a complaint we all hear a lot: part of the problem with the presidential elections is that it's so difficult to muscle in a genuinely intelligent, interesting candidate actually worth voting for. It's very hard to get on the ballot at all without being a member of one of the major political parties (all two of them), or by getting a ton of signatures from a bunch of assholes--in other words, without being a groveling, pandering, utterly compromised and dishonest scum-bag, which is how most Americans already think of politicians. Indeed, the world abounds with articles entitled "Why Do Americans Hate Politics?" and "Why Americans Hate Politics". We have been given just enough freedom and leisure time to make us cranky about spending our time in the voting booth. Why go voting when you can go bowling, or eat out at Taco Bell, or read about how Oprah's latest weight-loss, without being penalized?
What we need is a decent candidate, with sane beliefs and policies, who would be able to run a serious campaign without joining a party or getting their name on the ballot. If this sounds preposterous, remember that every single citizen in the US has the right to a write-in vote, and a candidate who could remind us of that power, and who could make their own name popular enough to fill the slot, could quite conceivably get elected--it just hasn't happened yet. Every one of us can fill the blank with whatever name we want. (My high-school history teacher gets about thirty votes for President every four years, though he probably won't get any of those votes this year, since the stakes have been raised so high.) But who could run such a campaign, a campaign aligned with no party and making no attempt to get on the ballot, and actually make it work? It's not impossible, it just hasn't happened yet--but what the hell, people didn't used to protest wars even before they happened, either, and it happens now. We live in The Age of Possibility--all sorts of strange things, both wonderful and terrible, can happen; for example, look no further than our current president.
How about Robert Redford? Redford is quite politically savvy, as his political movies have shown; his 'The Candidate', one of the better political flicks ever made, probably presents a pretty accurate picture of the kind of person he is and what kind of challenges he might face as a candidate for President, though in the movie he's running for Senator, and in real life we'd want him to be less compromising than he is in the film. Robert Redford is a respected, recognizable American icon, and a genuine artist. He even has indie cred, via the Sundance Film Festival. He would easily command the votes of literally millions of Americans; think of how much more charming, and hip, Redford is when compared with Bush and Kerry! He isn't the ultra-popular bedroom-wall-poster-adorning young heart-throb that he was thirty years ago, but that is actually to his advantage in this case; his good looks have been sufficiently weathered to make him look very wise and Presidential. If some of these points seem superficial, well, superficiality works! Superficiality sells a lot of CDs, books, movies, and yes, candidates for office, here in the land of the free. With that in mind, just place Redford's name among those of our most revered statesmen: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Robert Redford...doesn't it look like a good fit? Doesn't it look like the name of a great President?
And Robert Redford has what it takes to run a popular campaign without going through all the usual channels; he has the fame to announce his candidacy and have it proclaimed all over the media immediately, which means lots of free advertising. So he wouldn't need a party, and he wouldn't need to run any official ads; he would only need to make his seriousness very clear, and, because of his fame, he would be allowed to voice his platform (which would probably be a great deal more intelligent and appealing that either Bush or Kerry's, or Nadir's, I mean Nader's) from virtually every major talk show in America. On those talk shows, he would have the opportunity to tell the American people that he is making no attempt to get his name on the official ballot, but that instead we'll have to vote for him as a write-in. We shouldn't have trouble remembering his name--after all, he's Robert Fucking Redford.
To anyone who claims that he would have a hard time being taking seriously, I have two words: Ronald Reagan. Reagan was a hilariously shitty actor, in hilariously shitty movies (anyone seen 'Bedtime for Bonzo'?), and he had no problem being taken seriously as a politician, which in this country is kind of like getting taken seriously as a professional wrestler or as a televangelist. Redford's iconoclastic attempt to get elected as a write-in might be met with contempt by some, but it might also give him the Presidency, especially if he used his famous charm to good advantage by refusing to sling mud at the other candidates, instead focusing on his own platform, thus making the people see him as being above the idiocy of the usual attempts the candidates make to discredit each other at all costs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another laughably shitty actor, is governor of California, and stands a reasonably good chance of being President someday if he can get our government to allow those who became citizens after their birth to run for Prez. Then there's Jesse Ventura, former governor (and former pro wrestler as well as sometime actor) of Minnesota, whose many fans have urged him to run for President. If we can get Carl Weathers to win office somewhere, most of the main cast of the movie Predator will have served in our country's government. So why not Robert Redford?
Well, there's really only one problem, but it's a big one: Robert Redford has already stated repeatedly that he doesn't want to run for President. Why should he? He already has an interesting, creative life--plenty of money and artistic credibility, a great film festival, the ability to do only those projects that he loves most--in short, a worthwhile career. Why the hell would he want to be President? Indeed, it might be hard to convince a genuinely creative spirit to run for such a widely ridiculed, disgraced and dubious office as President of the United States of America. And that is the biggest problem we face, really, when confronted with our own desire to see an inspiring and honest person run for office: why would anyone with a worthwhile, fulfilling life want to abandon it for mere politics? It's a troubling question: why would anyone with a life worth living--in other words, any positive and worthwhile person--want to exchange it for one hardly worth living, in which one is constantly asked to compromise the very principles and styles of action that made that life worth living in the first place? That is what it means to be a politician here, as well as in most places on earth. Which leads me to believe that our politicians are not particularly happy, fulfilled or imaginative people, and might explain why they so often vote, in large landslides, to go to war.
For those of us 35 or older who have smart ideas and who aren't Robert Redford, I think that serious grass-roots campaigns should be started all over the country with their eye on 2008. We have on our hands a population so sick of politics as usual that the door is wide open for write-in candidacies. Let's start a fad: "The Write-in Candidates." America loves fads, and the media loves a controversial story; hordes of people, or just two or three really good people, mounting campaigns for President could attract serious attention, and one or two of them might be able to beat the guys we've got on the ballot this year, all three of whom only incite feverish support among very small fringe-groups. America is a huge country, millions of whom want something entirely new. And the time saved by not paying heed to the "proper" channels, or the time-waste involved in getting one's name on a ballot, can be used to come up with ideas of how to get your message out, and what that message should be. The tasks that politicians perform are not nearly as difficult or as complicated as they wish us to believe, and they get lots of leisure time once they've been elected. And remember: America loves a good drama. Create some drama with small campaigns, and the media will begin to catch on.
