By Grant Smith, RP Staff, on Thu Jul 14, 2011 at 10:00 AM ET
The Politics of Fame
Texas Congressman Ron Paul (R-14) is not running for re-election to the House to focus on another run for the Presidency. One famous Republican strategist believes he could present a strong candidacy. [The Daily Beast]
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) proposes a solution to the debt-ceiling debate. While embraces on Wall Street, it has received a less enthusiastic reception on Capitol Hill. [Bloomberg]
Obama, the budget, and the art of political positioning. Or, “Politics as Kabuki Theater.” [Huffington Post]
Thanks to Rupert Murdoch, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown finally gets his “revenge.” [The Telegraph]
Austrian man is allowed to wear a pasta-strainer in his driver’s license photo. A pious follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the man argued the pasta-strainer was religious headgear. [BBC News]
Last Friday, in my role as a contributor to Politico’s “Arena”, I responded to a question about the presidential candidacy of guitar-playing, wise-cracking Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter. Was there room for him in the Republican field?
Sure, I replied. He can join Newt Gingrich in filling the comic relief void. He starts out, I noted dryly, with national name ID approximating that of my dad.
Several people told me they found my remarks amusing. But as I had the chance to reflect over the weekend, I realized that – with all due respect to Mark Halperin – I was being a dick.
I disagree with most of what Thaddeus McCotter – who calls himself a true constitutional conservative – espouses, but people shouldn’t mock passionate, sincere candidates just because they are longshots. And of all people, I definitely shouldn’t mock them.
***
When I decided to run for Congress in 2004, I was a nobody: a 29 year-old adjunct lecturing at a local university while trying to complete my Ph.D. I had no money, no political base and no name; my staff was a ragtag crew of students. The leading candidate was Russ Carnahan, scion of Missouri’s most powerful political dynasty: the “Kennedys of Missouri.” Russ’s dad was a two-term Governor and his mom a U.S. Senator; my dad had been a golf coach, a sportswriter, a pool hustler, and adverstising copywriter, and my mom counseled children with special needs. Ten candidates filed; Carnahan led the field by 40 points.
I set two benchmarks for myself, one concrete, the other less so. The real benchmark was that I vowed to raise $100K in my first quarter, somehow.
The second benchmark was somewhat less scientific. One evening after teaching, I went across the street from campus and canvassed a neighborhood to see if people would take me seriously as a congressional candidate, or if they thought I looked too young (I was a boyish 29, 5’6” and 120 pounds soaking wet). I knocked on about 40 doors.
The first door was answered by a thirty-something woman who immediately after my introduction asked me point-blank if I was pro-choice. “Absolutely,” I said. She said she’d vote for me as long as I didn’t waver on that issue. I thought to myself, OK, there’s one vote, at least I won’t get shut out.
A few doors later an older man asked me if I supported stem-cell research. “Absolutely,” I said, and he said he was a genomic researcher and would back me as long as I supported the right to unfettered scientific research. Two for two. I can do this.
A few minutes later, a middle-aged woman opened her door, and I introduced myself. “Hi, my name’s Jeff Smith, and I’m planning to run for Congress next year, but just wanted to come by today and see if you have any questions for me.”
She looked at me quizzically. “Where are you coming from?”
“Uh, well, from campus, actually.”
“Oh, yes, you must want to see Janie. Hold on one second.” She called up the stairs, “Janie, come on downstairs, there’s a young man here who wants to talk to you, he’s running for Student Congress.”
“Tell him I’m busy, Mom,” came the disembodied voice of a college girl.
I was too embarrassed to explain myself. I said goodbye, walked back to campus, and started thinking of how I could raise $100K in 3 months, which I did, barely.
***
No, I'm Thaddeus!
Thaddeus McCotter knows exactly what I realized back in 2003: Primaries are about finding niches. And the terrain he encounters is not unlike the one I faced nearly a decade ago: a crowded field, but one in which he can identify possible niches to fill.
I knew there would be at least seven candidates (ultimately there were ten), and with each candidate to enter, the race became that much more attractive to more candidates, given the declining percentage needed to win. I spent weeks looking at numbers, analyzing different combinations, figuring out if there was enough space for me to fill. I estimated that with seven candidates, one could win with just 28-29% of the vote, and that the entrance of another candidate or two could reduce that number to 23-24%. For me, every decline in this number made the race more appealing, because the fewer votes needed to win, the more important each vote became. And the increased importance of each vote magnified the influence of a grassroots campaign relative to a money-and-media-driven campaign.
Today’s list emerges from my admission a few weeks ago that I never liked John Edwards because he reminded me of the pretty-boy jock in high school whom I envied and privately despised. Turns out there were other — less personally insecure — reasons to object to the former Senator.
But this journey of introspection into my high school-based shallow steretoyping — as I argue, a trait that most every human shares — has helped me understand why I unfairly disliked other pop culture figures, and how age and hopefully wisdom has helped me understand the error of my ways.
As you read my list of the Top Five Pretty Boys that I Begrudgingly Admire, I encourage you to think about whether you apply a similarly unfair standard to high-profile celebrities. Or whether I’m just full of Freudian psycho-babble.
Here goes:
5. Alec Baldwin
As a youth delegate to the 1988 Democratic National Convention (my first of six), I had two brushes with greatness. First, I stayed at the same hotel and shared an elevator with Rob Lowe (who just barely missed this list) at the height of his fame. (I learned a few months later that he temporarily derailed his career a few floors below my room in an encounter with an underage girl.) Second, was my attending a speech to our delegation by a then-unknown-to-me supporting actor in a movie I hadn’t seen (Married to the Mob). My frustration at attracting merely a C-list actor was heightened by the cliched bromides the pretty boy shouted at crowd. I grew to despise Alec Baldwin. His ridiculous marriage to the gorgeous town-purchasing Kim Basinger, and his dramatic movie career in which he seemed to always play the same arrogant pretty man that I assumed him to be in real life only accentuated my feelings. And then he gained a bunch of weight. I ended my Baldwin boycott, and watched his hilarious hosting turns on Saturday Night Live (Ahh.. Schwetty Balls), and his frankly brilliant portrayal of Jack Donaghy on 30 Rock (I still think this scene in which he performs family therapy for Tracy Morgan is his finest work.) The man is a comedic genius. And in re-watching Glengarry Glen Ross, I’m forced to admit, the pretty boy can act. (Coffee is for closers!)
4. Tom Brady
Growing up in Kentucky before the advent of the Tennessee Titans, the logical NFL team to support was the Cincinnati Bengals. OK, stop laughing. As ESPN The Magazine just ackowledged by rating the Bungles the very worst professional sports franchise — 122nd place to be exact — I was forced to find another team. After a childhood infatuation with the Dallas Cowboys, I ultimately settled on my college-area team, the New England Patriots. That, of course, was an uninspired choice for more than a decade; until 2001, when it looked like the team had the makings of a champion. Then our quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, went down, and was replaced by the unheralded pretty-boy in his second season, Tom Brady. I refused to give him credit for that Super Bowl win, and the rings he won in 2004 and 2005 were overshadowed in my mind by his dumping the pregnant Bridget Moynahan for the supermodel Gisele. But Brady kept improving, winning MVP awards and leading the Pats to an almost-perfect 2007 season. I gave up. I’m a Brady fan. No matter how pretty he is.
(WARNING: Next Pretty Boy Picture –after the jump — is NSFW)
Read the rest of… The RP: Top 5 Pretty Boys I Begrudgingly Admire
