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Wednesday, August 25, 1999

Bulworth or Ishtar

Fade In. A street scene in South-Central Los Angeles. At a bus stop, a young, single, frazzled-looking mother hands her two-year-old son to her seven-year-old daughter and kisses them. She boards the bus -- for an hour-and-a-half commute to a minimum-wage job. As the door closes, she waves good-bye. The camera follows the children as they walk down the block of urban blight. They pass young, menacing-looking unemployed men hanging out, boarded-up stores, vacant lots protected by razor wire, liquor stores with bars across the windows. The camera leaves the children and pans out of the neighborhood, through the streets of Los Angeles, down affluent, shop-lined Rodeo Drive, through Beverly Hills, down Sunset Boulevard, across the San Diego Freeway, and into the hilly neighborhoods of L.A.'s rich-and-famous. It travels past a front gate and up a long driveway. It moves into a mansion, through the front hallway, through a well-decorated living room, and into a wood-paneled den. On the wall are photographs of famous politicians, each one a liberal Democrat, each one posing with a good-looking fellow with shaggy hair. We then see this fellow siting on a couch. Before him, there are copies of The New York Times and The Washington Post. CNN is on the television. The phone is ringing. He is looking at it, obviously pondering a matter of grave importance....

Warren Beatty is waiting for a call-back. Two weeks ago, syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington asked Beatty if he might consider reprising his most recent cinematic role -- in which he played a Senator who becomes so fed up with the money-tainted political system that he begins rapping the truth -- but to do so in real life. Beatty's film Bulworth promoted his belief that the federal government is in hock to corporate special interests and, consequently, unable to address such major problems as inadequate health care, dramatic income inequity in a booming economy, and environmental despoilation. He told Huffington that he was disappointed with the Democratic Party -- whose candidates he has been assisting for decades -- and that there was a need for a populist, tell-the-people-the-truth voice in this presidential election. "There has to be someone better [than me]," he said. "There has to be someone else. But something has to be done." Huffington reported his remarks and tossed out the notion of a President Bulworth, played by Beatty. Thus was born the Beatty for President boomlet.

Huffington was flooded with e-mails from people who wanted to contribute. Beatty started talking to progressive policy advocates and politicos. He was contacted by representatives of the Reform Party. Within days, he was at 9 percent in a poll of Democratic primary voters, 11 percent in a survey of general election voters. Reporters besieged Beatty with calls; he kept quiet. Maureen Dowd dissed the idea, asserting he was too much of a control-freak to submit himself to the chaos of a campaign. Alec Baldwin, another potential thespian-pol, thumbed his nose at Beatty: "I would think if he's really serious, he'd go for something else first."

Libs across the country weighed the pros and cons. Here's a guy who could draw the spotlight to the institutional corruption that perverts our democracy. But... here's a guy who could come across as a limousine liberal -- talk about radical chic! -- and marginalize the important issues of campaign finance reform, wealth disparity, and health coverage for all. What would it say about the left if it can only put forward as a leader a pretty-boy actor? Is a rich Hollywood poobah the best advocate for a minimum wage increase? But... isn't it better to have any voice in the national discourse afforded by a presidential campaign? But... would a Beatty campaign end up being more about Beatty than Beatty's issues? And what's on the table? Would he run as a Democrat or independent? Might he try for the Reform Party nomination?

Hey, it's August. Political junkies have to write and jabber about something other than George W. Bush and cocaine. (I covered the W.-and-coke story weeks ago and was glad to see it become so prominent a matter recently that it was referred to, in shorthand, as "The Question.") To date, this presidential race has not yielded much of a national debate on the basics. Who's asking why one-fifth of all American children are living in poverty at a time of economic prosperity? Why 43 million Americans do not have health insurance? Why we allow insurance bureaucrats to run the health care system? Or who controls the power in Washington? Gore versus Bradley is the policy equivalent of Coke versus Pepsi. The Republican intellectual contest -- such as it is -- has been smothered by Bush's Texas-sized bankroll. No one is swinging as hard at the political system as Beatty-as-Bulworth did. There's an opening in the script. And what's more preposterous -- a magazine publisher running for President or an actor-producer-director-writer doing the same? If Steve Forbes can be regarded seriously, there's room for Beatty. Unlike Bush or Forbes, Beatty is a self-made success, not a daddy's boy.

If Beatty green-lights this project, he will be guaranteed a chance to share his ideas with the public. The media may fixate more on his celebrity than his cause. (At least, they won't have to chase after the secrets of Beatty's personal life. That's definitely a dog-bites-man story!) Whether the media coverage is respectful or, more likely, snotty, Beatty will be able to enter living rooms across the country. On Larry King Live. On the Today show. On Nightline. On Rosie. On BET. On MTV. On NPR. On PBS. What producer or booker won't want him as a guest. He will get a platform. Then people will either respond to his take-back-America message and call his 800 phone number, send money, check out his Web site. Or they won't.

An interesting question is where Beatty will mount his challenge, should he throw his Dick Tracy fedora into the ring. Would he try to shake up the Democratic primary? Several people talking to him say that seems to be his inclination. "He goes all the way back to the Kennedys," says one of Beatty's political advisers. "Asking him to step away from that is pretty damn tough."

But if Beatty's message is Bulworth's message -- in the movie, Bulworth tells a reporter, "Republicans, Democrats, what's the difference? It's a club. Why don't we just have a drink?" -- then he should not bother with the Democrats. Why try to work inside a party that is part of the problem, especially if that entails going up against a sitting Vice President? "The fundamental message of Bulworth is what Warren believes," says his pal Pat Caddell, a political consultant-turned-producer. "It's that politics is irrelevant to people's lives and won't be fixed from the inside. It has to be someone from the outside." Beatty, he reports, has been shifting his view from that of a liberal Democrat to that of an outraged outsider: "He has gotten more and more upset in recent years. He sees that the system cannot correct itself." If things are that rotten, why waste time trying to save a worthless party from its own Vice President?

To effectively challenge the two halves of a corrupt political duopoly, it might be best for Beatty to remain free of both. Toward that end, there is a vehicle he can use -- or hijack: the Reform Party. Ross Perot's creation is mostly an empty shell with a mixed pedigree. But it does offer a maverick presidential candidate one strong benefit: $12 million. Because the party's candidate -- Perot -- scored over 5 percent in the last presidential contest, the party's nominee in 2000 is entitled to about $12 million in federal funds (the GOP and Democratic nominees will receive much more) plus a convention allotment. That would go a long way toward funding a protest, get-out-the-message campaign. It's true that Beatty's liberal politics do not mesh with those of most Reform Party members. (Ross Perot is the ultimate square.) But Beatty's core issue -- money-and-politics -- is the core issue of the party. Beatty and some RPers might find common cause in their skepticism toward NAFTA and other corporate-friendly trade pacts.

 At the moment, there is a scuffle occurring in the party between Perotistas and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's posse. Beatty would not want to jump into the middle of that. But even though he and Ventura are hardly soul-mates (though both are actors), he has something to offer the Body. Ventura needs a Reform Party nominee who can bag over 5 percent of the vote so the party can qualify for federal support in 2004. The Body has said he intends to keep his promise to Minnesotans and not seek the presidency in 2000, but he must be contemplating options for the next go-round. He might be willing to lend the party to Beatty for a campaign that puts money-and-politics at center stage and has a chance of meeting the 5-percent threshold.

No doubt, this would not be an easy hand-off. Perot is not likely to countenance such a step. He might be more keen on Pat Buchanan, who refuses to rule out a bid for the Reform Party nomination should his Republican efforts founder. Would Beatty want to engage in the spectacle of a Reform Party primary battle against Buchanan? There is a price for saving one's country that no man should be expected to pay. Ventura has said repeatedly he is not in favor of nominating Buchanan, noting that the Reform Party does not cotton to Buchanan's far-right social views. But Ventura probably also realizes that if Buchanan is granted temporary rights to the Reform Party, he might not hand it back to Ventura after the election. One can easily imagine a sectarian Buchanan putsch that, in Bolshevik-style, takes over the party. Pitchfork Pat does have brigades enough to make an attempt at a Body-slam.

 Does Mr. Shampoo want to venture into this sort of rat's nest, or even hobnob with the Brylcreem crowd of the Reform Party? Probably not. But it's worth considering. He could also go independent and adopt the Jerry Brown model. With his 800 number and $100 contribution limit, the former California governor/renegade Democrat raised $11 million during his 1992 anti-Big Money presidential bid. As an independent, Beatty could be expected to have similar fundraising success. (Even as he preaches against the evils of money in the political system, he is going to need cash -- but clean cash -- to finance his effort.) By running for the Reform Party nomination or as an independent, Beatty would provide his campaign with an internal consistency. If he is going to kick some butt, he may as well kick all the way.

This would entail a break from his past -- a prospect that is making some Democrats nervous. Democratic Party officials in Washington are "wigged out" about a possible Beatty candidacy, according to one Capital Hill Democrat, who reports that party officials are trying to woo Beatty with a House seat. Be our nominee against Republican Representative Mary Bono, the Democrats have suggested to Beatty. But that is slightly demeaning. He would have to campaign in Palm Springs and against the widow of Sonny Bono. Where's the grandeur in that? How does that refashion politics as we know it? The Democrats are not concerned -- at this stage -- that Beatty presents a threat to Gore, but they fret that a Beatty campaign might steal away some of the top liberal moneybags of LA. Television producer Norman Lear, for one, has said, "I don't see out there in either party, on the left or the right, anybody representing the bulk of the American people. The closest I've seen is Bulworth."

Beatty representing America's bulk? He has been reluctant to make such a claim. Some who know him are warning those intrigued by a Beatty candidacy that he can be diffident and indecisive. "He can't make up his mind about who to have dinner with," says one LA liberal politico who has worked with him. "I don't think he can maintain the rigors of campaigning. Yes, very few people can get attention for these issues. Wouldn't it be fun? Well, for a month. Then reality would hit." Stanley Scheinbaum, the millionaire dean of LA liberalism and a Beatty friend, told the Washington Post, "What can I say [about a Beatty/Bulworth run]? He's a star. It serves his purpose. He's very serious, but I also think he's having fun." Scheinbaum guessed that Beatty, in the end, will not shout, "action!" Beatty, he says, "is taking advantage of the podium." But in the past week, I've spoken with others who have talked with Beatty since this bubble materialized, and they have been impressed with his intelligence, depth, command of political issues, and apparent sincerity.

As of this writing, Beatty, silent as Garbo, has not revealed any timetable for a decision. He has told confidantes that he intends to pen a few op-eds, as he mulls away. In part, he is assessing the reaction to the trial balloon Huffington let loose. "He doesn't need to be a sacrificial lamb," Caddell says. "He's waiting to see if other people come forward who want to join in. If so, then it's not just he's crazy, but they're all crazy." In other words, there's sanity in numbers.

A Beatty campaign could be an humiliating flame-out. But recall how Ross Perot, a madman, made the budget deficit the number-one issue on the national agenda by running for president in 1992. Might Beatty do likewise for money-and-politics? Probably not, but no one else is willing to give it an all-out try. (Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, a veteran critic of the special interest lock on Washington, is thinking about running as a part-time candidate for the Green Party.) Many of the pundits and gatekeepers will cry that any serious treatment of a Beatty candidacy only further trivializes politics and signals one more triumph of the culture of celebrity. True, but when the political system is so far gone -- Bush is the GOP leader because a handful of Texas millionaires raised $37 million for him; Forbes is in the race because he inherited hundreds of millions; Buchanan is a contender because he scowls at people like me on television; and too much of Washington is controlled by a small gaggle of political funders and corporate lobbyists -- why worry about a lack of respectability?

I'd like to see what would happen if Bulworth jumped off the screen and took his rap to voters, not just viewers. It couldn't be any more embarrassing than Ishtar.

Copyright © 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, American Politics Journal Publications.