Okay, my choice to replace President Biden as the Democratic nominee is George Clooney.
Yes, I’m semi-serious. No, I don’t expect anyone else to take me seriously – let alone an Oscar-winning actor.
His lifestyle, privacy and salary would be greatly affected – even if a $400,000 salary plus free housing, food and travel sounds very enticing to most people. Even if the workload increases significantly.
Why Clooney?
The bottom line is that he could easily defeat the dangerous Donald Trump, perhaps even in a landslide. Clooney is a better actor. That’s all Trump is, except a compulsive liar. Clooney is much more than that.
His smile is easy, sincere and very photogenic. Trump pouted and frowned, it was a horror show.
Clooney displays strong faith and is a humanitarian. Trump displays self-centered opportunism and spreads hatred.
Cloney is relatively young for today’s presidential candidates. At 63, he is an optimistic man.
What other reasons could there be?
Unlike most major Democratic politicians, Cloney had the courage to speak openly with the public about what he saw and urged Biden to abandon his re-election bid. Just weeks ago, he co-hosted a record-breaking $30 million, star-studded Hollywood fundraiser for the president.
“I love Joe Biden. … He’s won a lot of the battles he’s faced over the past four years. But the one battle he can’t win is the battle against time. None of us can,” Cloney said in ” wrote a New York Times column.
He pointed to the 81-year-old president’s disastrous performance in the debate with Trump.
The Biden he saw at the fundraiser was not the Biden of four years ago, Clooney wrote, “he was the same guy we saw at the debate. …
“Our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw… This [ABC] George Stephanopoulous’s interview only reinforced what we saw a week ago. …Is it fair to point these things out? It must be. … We’re not going to win in November with this president. …
“The top Democrats… need to demand that this president voluntarily step down. … Will it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But will it energize our party and wake up as early as June?” Voters who dropped out before the debate certainly will.
agree.
Despite some missteps, especially on illegal immigration, Biden has been a good president. But that doesn’t mean he’ll be effective in a second term.
And Biden’s candidacy is unsustainable. Support among congressional Democrats is fraying.
What’s more, voters have been telling pollsters for months that they want a younger Democratic standard-bearer. But the party didn’t listen. Now, Biden is losing to Trump, and there’s even speculation that some blue states will turn purple.
Customers watch the debate between President Joe Biden and former President Trump at a watch party on June 27 in Scottsdale, Arizona.
(Ross D. Franklin/AP)
Biden loyalists like California Gov. Gavin Newsom may loudly praise the president, but too many voters have lost faith in his mental acuity. They doubt his ability to defeat Trump and doubt his ability to perform well in the Oval Office.
Biden’s hour-long press conference Thursday night went well.
Biden escaped the silly two-minute time limit for answering questions in televised debates and was able to give thoughtful answers. His performance was particularly impressive when answering foreign policy questions about dealing with China and Russia.
But he embarrassingly answered the first question wrong. Biden was asked if he was concerned about Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to defeat Trump if she were to win the nomination.
“Look, if I didn’t think Vice President Trump was qualified to be president, I wouldn’t have chosen her to be vice president. So, let’s start there,” he responded.
This might have been considered a minor slip of the tongue, but the president made a similar mistake an hour earlier. At a ceremony in Washington, Biden accidentally introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a Russian tyrant who invaded Zelensky’s country.
“Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” Biden said, quickly catching himself.
Then there was the July 4 radio interview, in which Biden said: “I’m proud to be… the first vice president, the first black woman to serve with a black president.”
He is disrupting his usual line about being proud to serve with the first black president and choosing the first black woman as vice president. It’s an all-too-common slip of the tongue that fuels voters’ concerns about the president’s decline.
Clooney is a world-class communicator.
He’s a Kentuckian and could conceivably have the support of southern border states. Remember when he played the bluegrass frontman in that wonderful movie, Brother, Where Art Thou? Sure, he’s a fugitive, but that’s just a pretense. Trump is a real-life convicted felon.
Clooney piloted the Andrea Gale sword fishing boat into the “perfect storm” and sank, but I don’t believe he would have sunk the ship of state.
Look at how deftly and deftly he overthrew the corrupt corporate lawyers who tried to kill him in “Michael Clayton.”
and showcased his environmental credentials 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 did actors Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger before they were elected governor of California.
Trump is a reality TV star who also had never held any office before his shock election as president. In his case, this comes through.
Well, Clooney won’t be nominated for president. Democrats have no imagination.
But they should host us at their August convention in a competitive, public contest to select the best candidate to stop Trump. And this isn’t Biden.
