Predator Politics

So this is a cool report from Slate on how the cast of "Predator" has been unusually prone to maverick bids for public office. I've always said that the Predator pair - Ventura and Schwarzenegger - should run as independent candidates for president (unfortunately, President Schwarzenegger wouldn't be possible due to natural-born citizenship requirements... but there was a discussion about amending the Constitution to do away with this requirement in 2004. That debate could always be revived). There are only two words available to fully describe a Ventura-Schwarzenegger (or Schwarzenegger-Ventura) ticket: "bad" - "ass"

Anyway - this report is on another cast member who is running for the Senate in Kentucky on the Libertarian ticket... against Senate Minority Leader and uber-Republican Mitch McConnell. So unfortunately, this doesn't look like its meant to be. Still, I can't think of anything that would qualify someone more for public office than battling alien warriors in the jungle.

I don't care how silly it sounds to some people and I don't care how goofy Ventura has acted or how erratically Schwarzenegger has governed. We need politicians who are independent, confident, proud, respectful of the people, and not in the pockets of anyone. I've often made the case for Bloomberg's possible presidential run on these grounds, and its the same reason I admire what Ross Perot (or Theo Roosevelt, for that matter) did. If an independent candidate did nothing else right, they would succeed in doing one thing - breaking the toxic grip of the two major political parties on Washington for at least four years. And besides - even on policy issues I bet an independent candidate would do well. Without party affiliation they would have the opportunity to be flexible and explore different options - they would probably pull the best and the brightest from both sides of the aisle to serve in their administration, and most independents in recent years have been fairly moderate - so nothing crazy would be likely to happen. We have only had one truly unaffiliated president in our history - who did not pay fealty to anyone or any party and demonstrated that by staffing his administration with members of both major parties. That was George Washington, and it was damn good eight years if you consider how it could have played out under a Hamilton, a Jefferson, or an Adams (all great in their own right... they just probably would have steered the U.S. in a radically different direction if they had the opportunity to be the first president).