AHC: President Johnny Cash

Made after a now closed thread of the same name. The challenge is fairly self explanatory. Have Johnny Cash be POTUS, preferably after he has already started his music career.
 
Johnny Cash runs for Governor of Tennessee in 1974, defeating Ray Blanton in the Democratic primary. His term as governor is successful due to bringing economic development to the state as well as raising the profile of Tennessee in general for tourism and other investment. As he is he term-limited, he leaves office in 1982, where he has a brief comeback in his music career before his 1984 Senate run where he defeats Al Gore in the primaries for the Democratic nominee for Senator, and comfortably wins Howard Baker's vacated Senate seat. In the 1992 election, he becomes the Democrat nominee for president and beats George H.W. Bush to become president, likewise winning re-election in 1996. Johnny Cash dies around the same time as IOTL.

Really depends how much the Man in Black wants to work with other Tennessee political figures, but once he's in there he'd likely be able to convincingly attribute a lot to his governorship and Senate terms to attract voters both statewood and in the national primaries. Plus he has that name recognition which is always good. His religious and political beliefs will sync well to appeal to many voters.
 
College, schmollege: that's small time compared to his drug/alcohol difficulties for openers. Those character issues (to use an overworked term I despise) will squelch any political career beyond the state level.
 
Bush’s excesses were small potatoes compared to Cash.
I believe his quote was “I’ve sinned as much as a man can sin before he finds the Lord.”
 
Could he potentially try to sell a religious revival leading to him becoming clean as a way to mitigate the drug issue?
 
Considering Cash is fairly well know for his religious revival I don’t see why not.

I could see govenor, senator or president Cash making prison reform a key issue of his, but that would be difficult to sell in the 80s and 90s.
 
Could he potentially try to sell a religious revival leading to him becoming clean as a way to mitigate the drug issue?
Great day in the morning, there's a scary thought: a relatively uneducated former junkie combined with the fervor of a William Jennings Bryan. The potentials for catastrophe are legion.
 
Great day in the morning, there's a scary thought: a relatively uneducated former junkie combined with the fervor of a William Jennings Bryan. The potentials for catastrophe are legion.

The Man in Black and Jimmy Carter could team up for a "Religious Left" which is probably better than the Religious Right (even though that will probably still happen to some degree).
 
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