Commentary: GOP candidates playing their roles
Laguna Beach has been, and continues to be, home to many Hollywood stars. These include Bette Davis, Robert Englund, Eve Plumb, Bette Midler and many other past and present celebrities.
The line between Hollywood and politics often is blurred. This is especially true when it comes to this year’s Republican presidential race. You couldn’t write a stranger script than the one playing out in front of voters daily.
Take for example what easily could be Rick Santorum’s campaign theme, “Back to the Future,” or commander-in-space Newt Gingrich’s “The Jetsons.” Forget George W. Bush and his brand of compassionate conservatism. Santorum and Gingrich are convoluted conservatives.
Some might argue that Ron Paul is living on “Fantasy Island” but who knows? He might look good in a white suit. Paul is the essence of cool. Maybe this is why so many college students like him.
Then there’s Mitt Romney (aka the Rodney Dangerfield of the GOP bunch this year). Only 1,200 people showed up for his blockbuster speech last Friday at Ford Field in Detroit. Never mind it has seating for 65,000 fans. I’m sure the near-empty stadium would have been enough to make Ronald Reagan’s celebrated image maker, the late Michael Deaver, roll over in his grave.
Not too many months ago, the Republican candidates looked more like “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” than contenders for the highest office in the land. That’s probably as it should have been since Barack Obama, “The American President,” had not yet launched his reelection campaign.
In that 1995 movie classic, Michael Douglas was cast as President Andrew Shepherd and Annette Bening played his lobbyist girl friend Sydney Ellen Wade. Richard Dreyfuss portrayed Sen. Bob Rumson, Shepherd’s would-be opponent.
It won’t surprise me if, during the campaign this coming fall, the real life President Obama doesn’t take a page from fictional President Shepherd’s comments to reporters in the White House briefing room:
“I’ve known Bob Rumson for years, and I’ve been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn’t get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it. Bob’s problem is that he can’t sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character.”
Lights, camera, action ... Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are characters alright, but not one of them seems to be able to pass his audition with voters. That said, “Bob Rumson” might be just the candidate Republicans are yearning for in 2012.
DENNY FREIDENRICH first moved to Laguna Beach in 1970. He is the founder of First Strategies consulting.