DBWI Challange: Make Ronald Reagan President

Ronald Reagan was a famous actor who is probably best known for playing the role of President Douglas Mumble on the popular TV series Yes, Mr. President, which ran from 1980-1988.

Your challange, should you chose to accept it, is to make Ronald Reagan President, with a POD after 1960 but before 1970. it might no be that hard, since Reagan was a big supporter of the Republican Party, and even managed to raise over one million dollars for Barry Goldwaters campaign for President in 1964. Their were some rumors of him going into politics, but he eventually decided to stay in acting.
 
Who the hell would elect him? This is still America; nobody's gonna vote for some cowboy playing President. Not to mention how extreme a Conservative he was. ASB, unless he time travels back to the 1920's when such ideology could be acceptable.
 

Cook

Banned
Ronald Reagan as U.S. President.
:eek:
Sure, with Bonzo the Chimp as Vice President no doubt.
:p
Time to change the Bong Water Dude!
:cool:
 
Who the hell would elect him? This is still America; nobody's gonna vote for some cowboy playing President. Not to mention how extreme a Conservative he was. ASB, unless he time travels back to the 1920's when such ideology could be acceptable.

I never said it would be easy. :p
 
Reagan briefly entertained the idea of running for Governor of California in '66. But to think that he could somehow topple Governor Pat Brown is absolutely ASB. Even Nixon, the former VPOTUS couldn't take down Pat Brown.
 
Hold on, we can seriously do this. He was active in politics for a while. He was even president of the SAG. Since he's charismatic and just well-informed enough to seem like he knows what he's talking about, all that you have to do is set him up against some sort of seriously unpopular politician. I'm not sure about Governor, since Brown had that in the bag. But I can see him serving a term as a Representative after moving to Orange County, and moving to the Senate from there. I mean, sure it'd mean moving from Beverly Hills to the OC, but people have moved farther away for smaller prizes.
 
Who the hell would elect him? This is still America; nobody's gonna vote for some cowboy playing President. Not to mention how extreme a Conservative he was. ASB, unless he time travels back to the 1920's when such ideology could be acceptable.

I agree about that actor not being electable, but as for the ideology he held, it was and still is quite popular stateside. After all, Hillary Rodham-Bush got elected in 1996, and the policies she got enacted were very similar to what the US right started proposing in the mid-1960s. Rodham-Bush got re-elected, so her policies weren't all or even mostly duds.

What Reagan needed to be encouraged to enter politics was a shot at a relatively easy victory, seeing he was both reluctant to leave Hollywood and that he could be very stubborn. His reluctance was understandable, given how popular his home state's incumbent governor was... What if Brown were to step down in 1960 or 1964?

Had Reagan gone for it, his chances of ascending to national office would have been about the same as those of that pinko-commie political commentator (Trudeau? Or am I thinking of someone else entirely?) had of winning here in Canada. For Reagan, Governor of California might have been doable, especially if Brown were to step aside. Anything more? ASB.

One thing about Reagan, you wouldn't see too many gaffes involving cameras or open mikes, given that he'd have worked around them for 30-40 years ahead of a hypothetical entry into politics.
 
The Actor President

Who the hell would elect him? This is still America; nobody's gonna vote for some cowboy playing President. Not to mention how extreme a Conservative he was. ASB, unless he time travels back to the 1920's when such ideology could be acceptable.
Actually, I could see it. He had a televised speech at the Republican Convention in 1964 that was HUGHLY popular. His acting career at the time was seen as pretty much dead after "Bedtime For Bonzo". The 1966 California Gubernatorial race for the Republican nomination was wide open. After the curbstomping Brown gave Nixon with the full DNC/Kennedy apparatus behind him, NOBODY wanted to challence Brown in '66. He did have some administrative experience as the head of the Screen Actors Guild, so it wasn't TOTALLY crazy in terms that he had some leadership experience. The $ he raised for Goldwater and his own politics would make him very popular with California Republicans, not a very liberal lot.

So assuming, by default, he's got the nomination, how does he win? By running as quiet a door-to-door campaign as he can while hoping like hell that Brown basically takes victory for granted, doing very little campaigning of his own. Still, it is still a very long odds race. Brown would have to historically screw up in a November Surprise to lose. Assuming Reagan got grassroots traction, with help from the Goldwater wing of the GOP, and Brown DOES slipup somehow, Reagan stuns the nation with winning the CA governors mansion.

This is where things start to get ASB. You have to assume Reagan will spend all his time doing all the ceremonial stuff while he just lets all the best people (A GOP Best and the Brightest) run his administration for him. If he is REALLY lucky, and I don't know how he would do it, he finds (attracts?) those experts. So if everything in CA is running on all cylinders, he could have a very successful governorship. Especially when you consider how very low the expectations were for the "Cowboy Guv".:D Assuming in this scenario he gets re-elected(!) he serves to '74. Now he is seen as the standard bearer for the rightwing of the GOP, at a time when the centrists are prostrate (Watergate) and the liberals are fading away. But the White House? What GOP candidate could win in '76? Against another Washington outsider? (Jimmy:rolleyes:) 1980 would be perfect for him. Only his re-election:)eek:) would have an ingrained problem with his age and the senility that struck him in the 90's might comeup sooner from the strains of the White House.

OK, lol. Go ahead, everybody start laughing.:p
 
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Cook

Banned
nobody's gonna vote for some cowboy playing President.


Clint Eastwood was an actor and played cowboys before he became a Senator and Vice President. I looked it up on Imdb. ;)

Is that where you got the idea for this thread from theReturner? Eastwood’s career was way bigger then Reagan’s and his cowboy movies were very early on. His broad popularity was from the Terminator Movies.
 
You're Gonna Be In Pictures, You're Gonna Be A Star!

By the way, out of character post: the real screwup? 3 weeks before election day Brown said, IN PUBLIC: "You know, Lincoln was shot by an actor.:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:" This in a state where ever last resident, when asked: "Excuse me, are you an actor(actress)?" the instinctive reponse is always "YES! Are you a producer?":D
 
Clint Eastwood was an actor and played cowboys before he became a Senator and Vice President. I looked it up on Imdb. ;)

Is that where you got the idea for this thread from theReturner? Eastwood’s career was way bigger then Reagan’s and his cowboy movies were very early on. His broad popularity was from the Terminator Movies.

The "Terminator" trilogy was Eastwood's directorial debut. The first one was the first and (currently) only sci-fi film to win an Academy Award for "best picture". It's too bad that Eastwood's career as a director was interrupted by his rather successful foray into politics. It is also interesting to note that Eastwood is also a right-wing Republican.
 
Clint Eastwood was an actor and played cowboys before he became a Senator and Vice President. I looked it up on Imdb. ;)

Is that where you got the idea for this thread from theReturner? Eastwood’s career was way bigger then Reagan’s and his cowboy movies were very early on. His broad popularity was from the Terminator Movies.

Yeah, it sort of was, although Regan didn`t really have any popular movies like Easwood did. He mainly found his success in his later career on TV, as I mentioned in the OP.
 

Cook

Banned
Yeah, it sort of was, although Regan didn`t really have any popular movies like Easwood did. He mainly found his success in his later career on TV, as I mentioned in the OP.


Sorry. I missed that note.

I didn’t know he was on tv. We didn’t get many television shows from America back then because of the embargo.
 
Isn’t the entire entertainment industry?

Well, more or less. Hollywood and openly liberal don't exactly go together. The real liberals in the entertainment industry go to France or Germany. They can make more money with less hassle over there.
 

Cook

Banned
Well, more or less. Hollywood and openly liberal don't exactly go together. The real liberals in the entertainment industry go to France or Germany. They can make more money with less hassle over there.

Apparently Roman Polanski tried to get to France after his conviction for rape.
 

Cook

Banned
I did some more digging.

Senator Ciccone (Rep.) and Congress Person Sarkisian (Dem.) both sang to pay for their law degrees. That was well before either entered politics. Senator Ciccone also posed for nude photos, and that nearly sank her career.
 
Ronald Reagan? The actor? Who's his Vice-President? Jerry Lewis?

I suppose Jane Wyman is the First Lady!

And Jack Benny is Secretary of the Treasury.
 
I did some more digging.

Senator Ciccone (Rep.) and Congress Person Sarkisian (Dem.) both sang to pay for their law degrees. That was well before either entered politics. Senator Ciccone also posed for nude photos, and that nearly sank her career.

I read that Ms. Sarkisian's daughter had a sex-change operation last year and now calls himself Chaz.

As for Senator Ciccone, that was a shock when she won the special election in 1997 to replace Vice President Eastwood in the Senate. Arnold Schwarzenegger ran a lousy campaign and he had more skeletons in his closet than Ciccone.
 
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