AHC: Professional comedian as President/Prime Minister

Professional comedians have recently become prominent as actual or possible candidates for president or prime minister in several countries. Jimmy Morales is president of Guatemala. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Morales Al Franken is US Senator from Minnesota, and has been suggested as a presidential candidate. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/opinions/al-franken-for-president-zelizer/index.html Beppe Grillo is head of the Five Star Movement party in Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beppe_Grillo

Are there any other comedians who might have become president or prime minister in the past? (I don't count Ronald Reagan because despite "Bedtime for Bonzo" he was not known *primarily* as a comic actor.) Maybe if Fred Grandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Grandy had won the 1994 GOP primary for governor of Iowa (whcih he narrowly lost to the incumbent Terry Branstad...)? Nancy Kulp's congressional candidacy was doomed from the start--it was just too Republican a district. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Kulp

(Gracie Allen's 1940 campaign
was a publicity stunt, though there's an urban legend that she got a large number of write-in votes.)
 
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Maybe Mark Twain would have been popular enough to have a successful run in politics.
The death of his wife coupled with America's blatant aggression in the Philippines pushes him to run in the 1904 election. McKinley survived his assassination thus leaving the field wide open.
 
Pat Paulsen ran several satirical campaigns.

Have a failed incumbent who followed a failed president from the other party, and there you go. Voters are fed up with both Democrats and Republicans and wantbto give the establishment a huge middle finger.

It's how we got a WWF/reality TV star.
 
Pat Paulsen ran several satirical campaigns.

Have a failed incumbent who followed a failed president from the other party, and there you go. Voters are fed up with both Democrats and Republicans and wantbto give the establishment a huge middle finger.

It's how we got a WWF/reality TV star.

In the old days, that was really hard to get away with. I think even with a celebrity, you'd need a couple intermediate offices first.
 
I suspect if Bill Cosby had wanted to go into politics, he'd have a good shot at a nomination and an even better chance in the election. If he ran as a Democrat, he'd get at least their traditional levels of support among African Americans, and his overall persona would be hard for the Republicans to portray as a dangerous radical. (Especially if this was the era of the Cosby Show; his association with the more hip, urban Great Society-tinged Electric Company might be slightly more vulnerable to right-wing attack.)

Assuming, of course, certain issues never come to light.
 
I have just had a frightening vision of the Seventies with POTUS Bob Newhart (D-IL) (following the Jimmy Carter "outsider" trajectory) and Eric at No. 10 with Ernie at No. 11. (Morecambe, at least, was a Tory. So is Ken Dodd, if you'd rather have him as PM....)
 
Is Beppe Grillo the easiest?

Maybe Mark Twain would have been popular enough to have a successful run in politics.

That would be incredible, and the capstone on his legacy.

I suspect if Bill Cosby had wanted to go into politics, he'd have a good shot at a nomination and an even better chance in the election. If he ran as a Democrat, he'd get at least their traditional levels of support among African Americans, and his overall persona would be hard for the Republicans to portray as a dangerous radical. (Especially if this was the era of the Cosby Show; his association with the more hip, urban Great Society-tinged Electric Company might be slightly more vulnerable to right-wing attack.)

Assuming, of course, certain issues never come to light.

A Black John Edwards. His campaign could end ugly.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Tony Blai- oh wait 'professional'.

The problem itself, UK in particular, is that the kind of comedians who would probably be able to pull such a move off are either A) too young to reasonably be Prime Minister, or B) decided that being a comedian was better than perusing a political career.

Obviosuly this is an AHC, so I'll give it a crack.

Michael Gove wins the 2016 Leadership contest, Johnson possibly having an accident before Gove stabs him in the back.

Or

For whatever reason, both The Mitchell and Webb situation and Peep Show fizzle out- unfortunate production issues, dodgy and overbearing producers, whatever, both fail. Mitchell and Webb go their separate ways and failing to find work, David Mitchell deciding to return to the political ambitions that he abandoned when he went to Cambridge. As a child, he had always wanted to be Prime Minister or a Comedian- with the latter a failure, he can now refocus on the former. Some of his political views indicate he would be centre of the left, so he'll probably join Labour. Depending on when this is, he can either enter Parliament in 2005, or 2010 (assuming his failed career doesn't cause too many butterflies), maybe even filling the time between getting political experience in a council somewhere. Enters in 2010, joins the Shadow Cabinet as a Shadow Junior Minister, though where I don't know.

From about there, he can continue rising and may end up in a position where he can become Leader and Prime Minister in the near future.
 

Deleted member 67076

Does Nasser county? :openedeyewink: He was funny enough to be a comedian.
 
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