Well, my pick to replace President Biden as the Democratic nominee is George Clooney.
Yes, I'm serious. No, I don't expect anyone else to take me seriously, let alone an Oscar-winning actor.
Their lifestyle, privacy and salary would suffer greatly, although a salary of $400,000 plus free room, board and travel would sound very attractive to most people, even with the considerable increase in workload.
Why Clooney?
Most importantly, he would easily beat the dangerous Donald Trump, probably by a landslide. Clooney is a better actor. That's all Trump is, apart from a compulsive liar. Clooney is much more.
She has an easy smile that exudes sincerity and is extraordinarily telegenic. Trump pouts and scowls and is a horror show.
Clooney displays conviction and is a humanitarian. Trump displays self-centered opportunism and sows hatred.
Clooney is relatively young for a presidential candidate these days. He's 63 and optimistic. Trump is 78, grumpy and whiny.
Because otherwise?
Clooney had the courage, unlike most leading Democratic politicians, to be candid with the public, tell it as he saw it and urge Biden to drop his re-election bid. This came just weeks after he co-hosted a fundraiser for the president that raised $30 million and featured Hollywood stars.
“I love Joe Biden… Over the past four years, he has won many of the battles he faced. But the one battle he can’t win is the fight against time. None of us can,” Clooney wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times.
He was referring to the 81-year-old president's disastrous performance in the debate against Trump.
The Biden he saw at the fundraiser was not the Biden of four years ago, Clooney wrote, “it was the same man we all saw at the debate.”
“Our party leaders must stop telling us that 51 million people did not see what we just saw… [ABC] The interview with George Stephanopoulou only reinforced what we saw last week. … Is it fair to point out these things? It has to be. … We are not going to win in November with this president. …
“Senior Democrats…must ask this president to step aside voluntarily…Would it be chaos? Yes. Democracy is chaos. But would it breathe life into our party and awaken voters who, long before the June debate, had already disengaged? Surely it would.”
Agreed.
Biden has been a good president despite some mistakes, especially on the issue of illegal immigration. But that does not mean he would be effective in a second term.
And Biden's candidacy is not sustainable. Support among Democratic members of Congress is crumbling.
But much more importantly, voters have been telling pollsters for months that they want a younger Democrat, but the party has ignored them. Now, Biden is losing ground to Trump, and there is even speculation that some blue states could turn purple.
Patrons watch the debate between President Biden and former President Trump at a party on June 27 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
(Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
Biden supporters like California Gov. Gavin Newsom may praise the president loudly, but too many voters have lost confidence in his mental acuity. They doubt his ability to defeat Trump and perform adequately in the Oval Office if he does.
Biden's hour-long press conference Thursday night went well.
Freed from the absurd two-minute limit on answering questions in the televised debate, Biden was able to respond with thoughtful answers. In particular, he impressed when answering a foreign policy question about how to deal with China and Russia.
But he made an awkward mistake in answering the first question. Biden was asked if he was concerned about Vice President Kamala Harris' ability to beat Trump if she were the nominee.
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump as my vice president if I thought she wasn’t qualified to be president. So let’s start there,” he replied.
You could call it a minor slip of the tongue, but the president made a similar mistake by naming someone an hour earlier. At a ceremony in Washington, Biden accidentally introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the Russian tyrant who invaded Zelensky’s country.
“Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” Biden said, before quickly reflecting.
Then there was the July 4 radio interview when Biden said, “I am proud to be… the first female vice president, the first Black woman to serve under a Black president.”
He was repeating over and over his usual line that he was proud to have served with the first black president and to have chosen the first black woman as vice president. It was an all-too-common verbal gaffe that underscores voters' concern about the president's decline.
Clooney is a world-class communicator.
He’s a Kentucky native who could possibly rally support from the southern border states. Remember that wonderful movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou” in which he played a bluegrass singer? Sure, he was an escaped convict, but that was just fiction. Trump is a real-life convicted felon.
Clooney piloted Andrea Gail's swordfishing boat in “The Perfect Storm” and the boat sank, but I'm sure he wouldn't sink the ship of state.
Watch how skillfully and deftly he defeated the corrupt corporate lawyer who tried to kill him in “Michael Clayton.”
And he demonstrated his environmental beliefs and family values in “The Descendants.”
Politicians should never underestimate voters' desire to be entertained.
Yes, Clooney is just a movie star who has never held public office, but neither had actors Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger before they were elected governor of California.
And Trump, a reality TV star, had also never held office before being elected president, surprisingly. In his case, it showed.
Okay, Clooney is not going to be nominated for president. Democrats have no imagination.
But they should entertain us at their August convention by engaging in an open, competitive race to find the best candidate to stop Trump. And it's not Biden.
