A Celebrity List of Presidents:
37. Elvis Presley/George Romney (1969-1973)
-defeated Hubert Humphrey/Edmund Muskie, George Wallace/Curtis LeMay in 1968 [1]
38. Frank Sinatra/Birch Bayh (1973-1981)
-defeated Elvis Presley/George Romney in 1972[2]
-defeated Nelson Rockefeller/George H.W. Bush in 1976[3]
39. Ronald Reagan/Bob Dole (1981-1985)
-defeated Ted Kennedy/Hugh Carey in 1980[4]
40. Roseanne Barr/Tom Foley (1985-1993)
-defeated Ronald Reagan/Bob Dole in 1984[5]
-defeated Bob Dole/Donald Rumsfeld in 1988[6]
41. Donald Trump/Richard Lugar (1993-1997)
-defeated Tom Foley/Bill Clinton in 1992[7]
42. Morgan Freeman/Skip Humphrey (1997-2005)
-defeated Donald Trump/Richard Lugar in 1996[8]
-defeated Pat Buchanan/Connie Mack III in 2000[9]
43. Clint Eastwood/J.C. Watts (2005-2013)
-defeated Skip Humphrey/John Glenn in 2004[10]
-defeated Kay Hagan/Mary Landrieu in 2008[11]
44. Stephen Colbert/Bill Ritter (2013-present)
-defeated J.C. Watts/William H. Bush in 2012[12]
45. William H. Bush/Mike DeWine (taking office in 2017)
-defeated Stephen Colbert/Bill Ritter in 2016[13]
[1] When Elvis Presley kicked off his candidacy for President of the United States, many doubted his chances of success. His reputation made his candidacy seem unserious, a joke. Presley worked to clean up his image for the American people throughout 1967, and he successfully showed to the American people a serious, competent candidate for the Presidency. His next obstacle was the other candidates. He was up against former Vice President Richard Nixon as his main opponent. However, he worked to paint Nixon as a weak opponent, stressing how his loss in 1960 would lead the Republican Party to disaster in the general election. His charisma worked to his advantage as well. The energy and attractiveness he showed in his music videos, he brought to his campaign. And so it was that Elvis Presley's popularity grew. Presley managed to secure the nomination after a bitter contest against former Vice President Nixon, who, in a speech before the RNC, declared his support for Presley. Now Presley had to find a Vice President to run with. After searching through various Republican candidates, including Nixon, he settled with Governor George Romney as his running mate. The Presley/Romney ticket went up against Democrat Hubert Humphrey, the Vice President under Johnson. Humphrey worked to portray Presley as a shallow, vain celebrity, while Presley painted Humphrey as unsympathetic towards the American people, attacking him for the administration's policy towards Vietnam. On the general election, Elvis Presley managed a slight win over Vice President Humphrey, thus kicking off the beginning of the Celebrity Era.
[2] The beginning of the Presley administration ran pretty smoothly at first. As promised during his campaign, President Presley made a state visit to South Vietnam, where he declared that he wanted "a just peace for all Vietnamese". He tried unsuccessfully to secure a visit to the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, but he worked towards an eventual peace in Vietnam. The President also denounced China and the Soviet Union, stating famously, "They pursue Communism through war, war, war! They despise America and American values, and I will work within my power to undermine the scourge of communism!". However, his comments worked to undermine his chances at bringing peace to Vietnam, as the North Vietnamese refused to negotiate with Presley. As the 1972 election neared, the President's biggest campaign promise, withdrawing from Vietnam, was unfulfilled. The Democrats decided that they would need a candidate that could match President Presley in charisma while holding the core values of the Democratic Party. Singer Frank Sinatra was recruited by various Congressmen and Senators to run for the Presidency, and the 1972 Democratic Primary was swept by the singer. Sinatra selected Indiana Senator Birch Bayh as his running mate, and Sinatra fiercely attacked President Presley on his failed efforts for peace in Vietnam. Presley was on the defense, however, after he made a gaffe in which he seemingly agreed with the statement from Sinatra that "the President...has indulged himself in the worst tenets of McCarthyism". Frank Sinatra won in the general election in a landslide against President Presley.
[3]President Sinatra's administration started out shaky. In Vietnam, Sinatra had to deal with a Vietnam War that was not responsive to peace efforts made by the President, due to the stance of the earlier Presley administration. Sinatra decided to go before the United Nations to plead his case for peace, and his Vice President, Birch Bayh, famously made a visit to Beijing in order to work for a peace in Vietnam. Soon, the North Vietnamese government became receptive to possible peace talks, and Sinatra secured a ceasefire in the country. President Sinatra and the leaders of North and South Vietnam negotiated a peace treaty in the Swiss city of Zurich, eventually developing the Zurich treaty, bringing a status quo ante bellum and an end to the Vietnam war in late 1974. The President's popularity rating shot up as a result. The GOP in 1976 had New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller as the main frontrunner for the nomination, and Governor Rockefeller easily secured the nomination. He selected Senator George H.W. Bush of Texas as his running mate, and the Rockefeller/Bush ticket went into the general election trailing incumbent President Sinatra. Unfortunately for the GOP, Rockefeller was unable to catch up to Sinatra, and the incumbent President beat out the New Yorker in a decisive victory.
[4] As President Sinatra started his second term, he wanted to reduce the influence of dictatorships throughout the world, claiming that "When we support regimes that murder their people and dissolve their rights in the name of anti-Communism, we are no better than the Communists!" As such, President Sinatra turned against various dictatorial regimes it had previously supported. Sinatra then worked for an overthrow of the Chilean dictatorship under Pinochet. On October 31st, 1978, on what became known as "The Halloween Overthrow", an operation launched by the CIA was launched to overthrow Pinochet. However, the operation failed miserably. The operatives, who were Chilean anti-Pinochet citizens, were brutally murdered by the angry Pinochet regime. The incident led to Sinatra's unpopularity in the United States. During the 1980 election, Vice President Birch Bayh made a run for office, however, he was hampered by the unpopularity of the Sinatra administration. Senator Ted Kennedy ran against the Vice President, decrying the failures of the administration. Senator Kennedy won against Bayh, and went up against California Governor and former actor Ronald Reagan. Kennedy chose New York Governor Hugh Carey as his running mate, while Reagan selected Senator Bob Dole of Kansas as his running mate. Reagan's charisma during the debates allowed him to run over Kennedy at the debates, and improved Reagan's standing with the people. The Reagan/Dole ticket won in an astounding landslide against the Kennedy/Carey ticket.
[5] As President Reagan began his term, he worked to fulfill his anti-communist agenda, starting with a détente with the Pinochet regime, which remained chilly with the United States after the actions of the Sinatra administration. On March 30th, 1981, two months after Reagan took office, civil war broke out in Iran, with government forces lead by the Shah and a religious faction led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. President Reagan feared that Khomeini, if he took power, would cut off relations with the States and grow closer to the Soviet Union. Reagan took military action, sending troops to Iran to support the government. Several bombing attacks were carried out against the Khomeini faction, and these actions continued. However, the religious faction of Iran grew even more powerful as the government grew weaker. In 1983, Reagan decided that the government would not be sustainable, so he drew plans for the invasion of Iran. Infamously, he made a state visit to Iraq, meeting with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, offering the oil fields of southwestern Iran in exchange for assistance in an invasion. The invasion was launched on June 6th, 1983, 39 years after D-Day. Iraqi forces moved into southwestern Iran as American troops heavily bombed Iranian cities belonging to both government and rebel forces. The invasion rapidly proved to be heavily unpopular, and as Reagan moved into re-election, he faced a heavy primary challenge from the 1976 Vice Presidential nominee, George H.W. Bush. Reagan squeaked through victory, and Bush famously denounced Reagan, telling voters at the 1984 convention to "vote your conscience...vote for a candidate you trust". The Democrats saw in their nominee a comedian turned Democratic Senator in Minnesota Roseanne Barr, who had been a vocal critic of Reagan since his original campaign. She selected House Majority Whip Tom Foley as her running mate, and she hammered Reagan hard on the Iran War. Reagan defended it, claiming that he is keeping Iran from becoming a Soviet puppet, to which Barr famously replied, "Well, Mr. President, better we have a puppet than thousands of dead Americans who can't come home to their families.". Senator Barr was victorious, winning over 300 electoral votes against incumbent President Reagan. As a result, Roseanne Barr became the first female President of the United States.
[6] Being the first female President of the United States wasn't easy for President Barr. She started her administration with many doubting that she would be able to solve the problems dumped on her by the previous administration. Recession. The Iran War. President Barr got to work with the Democratic Congress, p, assing economic laws with the assistance of Vice President Foley. The first years of her administration were difficult domestically. However, foreign policy is where Barr struggled the most. President Barr wanted to end the war in Iran, but she knew she needed to keep American prestige intact, in order to avoid appearing weak by the Soviets. She started by cutting off assistance to Iraq, and withdrawing American troops from Iranian territory promised to the Iraqis by President Reagan. In 1986, the Soviet Union under Nikolai Ryzhkov sent troops to assist the Iranian government. The invasion, already slowing down, stalled. The United States held southern Iran, and Iraq barely held southwestern Iran. Finally, in late 1987, President Barr sent Secretary of State Frank Church to Tehran to negotiate a ceasefire with the Iranians, which was granted on October 5th, 1987. Helsinki, Finland hosted talks between Iran, Iraq, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Negotiations were difficult, as Iraq refused to cede territory it was granted. President Barr decided to intervene directly, flying to Helsinki herself for negotiations. In turn, Mohammed Shah Pahlavi, Saddam Hussein, and Nikolai Ryzhkov flew to Helsinki as well. Meanwhile, in the United States, former Vice President Bob Dole announced his run for President, stating that "the President will not be able to negotiate peace". He trouced his opponents for the nomination, and when Dole became the presumptive nominee, he selected former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as his running mate. He remained high in the polls, and it looked as if Dole would be able to win. However, on September 12th, 1988, peace in Iran was achieved with the Helsinki Agreement. It resulted in a status quo ante bellum, and the United States would assist Iran in its still-ongoing civil war in lieu of reparations payments. The agreement was slammed for its provision on keeping troops in Iran, and President Barr herself privately commented that she may have lost her chance as re-election. However, it was the Vice Presidential nominee, Donald Rumsfeld, that many say gave the election to Barr. He commented during the VP debate with Foley that "Withdrawing from Iran is a mistake, and we should have stayed in rather than deal with this agreement that throws America to the Soviets will.". By a very narrow margin, President Barr managed to squeak through a re-election victory.
[7] Despite the fact that President Barr won re-election, the voters were not going to let Barr off the hook. She now faced an angry Republican Congress, with severe opponents in Speaker of the House Trent Lott and Senate Majority Leader Clint Eastwood. President Barr, therefore, found her second term in office to be rather unproductive, as many actions she took domestically were blocked by Congress, including, notably, her work towards a universal healthcare system. She elecited controversy in 1990 when she issued an executive order that allowed gay people to serve in the military, stating that "our fighting men should be chosen by fitness to serve, not their personal life". The GOP Congress also stalled on working towards eliminating the opposition during the Iranian civil war, basically leaving the Iranian government to themselves, even though it would prove later on that the Iranians were more than capable of handling themselves. President Barr worked towards her vision of worldwide peace, appearing at the Berlin Wall in 1991 and urging the Soviet government to "open up this wall and let Germany free!". For the 1992 elections, the Republicans saw a dark horse candidate in New York City Mayor Donald Trump, who implored the GOP to "never surrender...never compromise". He managed to crush his competition somewhat easily, and in the RNC Convention in Seattle, he selected Senator Richard Lugar as his running mate. The Democrats faced a bitter primary between Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Vice President Foley. In the end, Foley pulled through, and in a move to unite the party, he selected Governor Clinton as his running mate. Trump attacked Foley on the administration's record, and despite eliciting controversy for referring to President Barr as a "fat pig", Trump managed to win in a landslide victory against Foley, showing the American people's dissatisfaction of President Barr's administration.
[8] Donald Trump took office replacing a very unpopular administration in the eyes of the public. In his inauguration address, he proclaimed that he would "reverse the damage of the Barr administration", and would "work on behalf of all Americans". However, his administration proved to be even more unpopular than the last. President Trump was suddenly faced with the continuing destabilization of the Soviet Union. On February 5th, 1993, just weeks after Trump took office, an attempted coup was made in the streets of Moscow by the military and some factions of the KGB. President Ryzhkov was killed during the coup, and soon, the Soviet Union plummeted into a full-scale civil war. President Trump made the decision to support anti-communist factions in the USSR, which proved to be very unpopular, as the United States was still sending forces to Iran as part of the agreement from the Iranian-American War, as it was now being called. When President Trump attempted to send American troops to support Central Asian breakaway states, President Ryzhkov threatened nuclear retaliation, leading to a two month long standoff between Trump and Ryzhkov, during which the economy further destabilized and many feared nuclear war. The Long Standoff, as it was called, finally came to an end when President Trump agreed to stay neutral during the Soviet civil war. His standoff was widely seen as reckless, and many accused Trump of warmongering. When the 1996 elections came around, President Trump's approval ratings were extremely low. The Democrats ran many candidates during the 1996 election, including '92 VP nominee and former Governor Bill Clinton, Senator Jerry Brown, Senator Skip Humphrey, and actor and Democratic activist Morgan Freeman. Freeman's position in the primaries looked poor, with wins in various states by Humphrey and Brown. However, Freeman managed to pull a surprise win during Super Tuesday, carrying four out of seven states in the primaries, giving Freeman more momentum. The primaries turned into a battle for the nomination between Senator Humphrey and Morgan Freeman, and it ended with Freeman narrowly getting the required delegates necessary to secure the nomination. Humphrey conceded, and he was selected as Freeman's running mate. In the general election, President Trump's performance in the debates deteriorated as Freeman's charisma outperformed Trump. Freeman was becoming as popular as Trump was unpopular, and he managed to win in a landslide against the incumbent President. Morgan Freeman then became the first African American President of the United States.
[9] Morgan Freeman found himself facing a country entirely distrustful of the Presidency, with the disastrous administrations of Donald Trump, Roseanne Barr, and Ronald Reagan having preceded the incoming Freeman administration. Therefore, it was President Freeman's mission to gain the trust of the American people. In his first State of the Union address, he pledged that he would "work on behalf of the American people, and emulate the actions of Roosevelt, of Lincoln, of Kennedy". His popularity stagnated as he struggled to stay neutral during the Soviet civil war, still ongoing by 1997. With the threat of the use of nuclear weapons within the Soviet Union, President Freeman, in a speech before the United Nations, called for peace between the various factions within the Soviet Union, stating that "your civil war turns more and more disastrous by the day". Finally, in February of 1998, the Soviet Civil War hit its peak when the rebels managed to capture Soviet nuclear missiles. The Soviet government threatened to use nukes still under Soviet control to bomb rebel forces, and the rebels threatened to use them on Moscow. The standoff lasted for three months, and finally, President Freeman offered to mediate between the Soviet and rebel forces. With both sides reluctant to use nuclear weapons on each other, they agreed, and representatives of the rebel and Soviet governments met in Geneva, Switzerland. However, during the meeting, rebel forces moved onto Moscow, starting the Battle of Moscow that would soon end the war. The Soviet leader, finding himself with the Soviet seat of government gone, and many Soviet states in Central Asia and the Baltics declaring their secession,and the inevitable loss of control of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, announced the formation of a government-in-exile in Kaliningrad, soon after the rebels declared victory. The rebels formed the United Federation of States, including the former Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. The UFS was recognized as the successor state to the Soviet Union by the United Nations on January 1st, 2000. President Freeman was growing more popular as a result of the crisis, and re-election was inevitable. Therefore, many prominent GOP figures such as Clint Eastwood or John McCain decided to wait until 2004 to run. Former White House Chief of Staff under President Trump, Pat Buchanan was among the only GOP figures running for President in 2000, and he easily secured the nomination. Buchanan selected Florida Governor Connie Mack III as his Vice President, and the GOP ticket of 2000 was easily crushed by President Freeman in a landslide victory.
[10] President Freeman secured a safe mandate for himself as he went on to serve his second term in office. With the Democrats holding the House and Senate and faithful allies in House Speaker Oscar Goodman and Senate Majority Leader Eric Schneiderman, the President worked to pass major legislation that he believed would be beneficial to the country. He set out to create a universal healthcare system for the country, and with Speaker Goodman and Senator Schneiderman's help, he was able to pass the American Healthcare Act, which was meant to be the first step towards universal healthcare. He worked with the GOP minority in Congress to draft the bill, and successfully received an endorsement of the bill from Senate Minority Leader Eastwood. He hailed his success as "a very important moment in American history". The Freeman administration went into 2004 confident in the Democrats retaining the White House, and Vice President Humphrey decided to make the run. He campaigned on continuing the legacy of the Freeman administration, and he successfully secured the Democratic nomination. Senate Majority Leader Eastwood, realizing that he would likely be beaten if he ran for re-election in the Senate, decided that he would run for President, and his popularity as a moderate Republican Senator allowed him to gain the nomination. Vice President Humphrey selected Governor John Glenn of Ohio as his running mate, while Eastwood also went for a Governor as his running mate, J.C. Watts of Oklahoma. The Vice President remained high in the polls going into the debates. However, Humphrey stumbled in the debates. Eastwood worked to portray himself as an agent of change, while Humphrey made several gaffes during the debates, including his infamous statement that "we built healthcare better with this bill than the doctors ever could". Eastwood hammered Humphrey, telling people that the Vice President was not ready to serve as President. On Election Day, Vice President Humphrey won the popular vote, however, Senator Eastwood narrowly won the electoral vote, becoming the next President of the United States.
[11] President Eastwood took office facing a Democratic majority Congress that had been unprepared for him, with many having believed that they would be facing a Humphrey presidency. Therefore, the administration needed to work with the Democrats to be able to pass its agenda. Eastwood worked to advocate for peaceful, stronger relations with the new UFS, and he made a visit to Moscow in order to "create a stronger bond between the United States and this beautiful, new democratic country". UFS President Alexei Navalny also made a state visit to Washington, and spoke before a joint session of Congress, and famously proclaimed "a New Chapter" in UFS-American relations. President Eastwood led the New Chapter with grace, and worked to foster global unity, relying on the assistance of former Presidents such as his predecessor, Morgan Freeman, who was appointed as Ambassador to the United Nations. The administration also put a focus on the domestic scene, launching a large-scale infrastructure project to rebuild American bridges, roads, and other run-down portions of American infrastructure. Eastwood's administration started into the election season becoming very popular in the eyes of the people, his bipartisan stances and his infrastructure project being his most popular assets of the administration. The Democrats nominated the former Senator from North Carolina, Kay Hagan, as their Presidential nominee, and she selected a fellow Senator from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu, as her running mate, creating the first all-female presidential ticket in history. However, the Hagan/Landrieu ticket was no match for the popular Eastwood/Watts ticket, which won the election in a near landslide.
[12] President Eastwood was re-elected, and he managed to lead the White House to a Republican majority in the Senate and made gains in the Democratic House. His final term started tragically when a plane flew into the Donald J. Trump Presidential Tower in Manhattan, New York, in a terrorist attack on February 5th, 2009. President Eastwood condemned the attacks and visited the site of the attack that destroyed part of the tower. The Trump Tower Commission was launched, and President Eastwood spoke with former President Trump, who was away in London at the time of the attacks. Slowly, the culprit of the attacks became more and more clear. The attackers were former Communists that had emigrated to the United States during the Soviet Civil War many years before, and had been planning the attack for years. UFS President Sergei Glazyev, who had succeeded the term limited Alexei Navalny the year before, visited the United States to give his condolences to the attack. As a result of the attacks, violence against Russian immigrants became prominent throughout the country, prompting President Eastwood to address the violence from an Oval Office address, condemning the attackers and "their hate towards innocent Russian-Americans". President Eastwood's response to the violence was seen as weak, however, and he soon started dropping in popularity. In the 2012 elections, the Democrats were shaken when political comedy talk-show host Stephen Colbert announced that he would enter the race during a meeting with former President Trump. Colbert soon started gaining popularity, and he managed to win the primaries over Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado, who he selected as his running mate. The Republicans nominated Vice President J.C. Watts, who selected Florida Representative William H. Bush as his Vice President. Vice President Watts slammed Colbert on the campaign trail, claiming that he is an "unserious" candidate. Colbert criticized Watts for the Eastwood administration's response to violence against Russian immigrants. During the presidential debates, Colbert was able to win the debates over Watts, while Bush managed to easily win the Vice Presidential debate against Bill Ritter. When the votes were tallied on Election Day, Stephen Colbert was narrowly elected as the President of the United States.
[13] When President Stephen Colbert took office at a time when the GOP had made many gains in Congress in the previous election, mirroring the situation his predecessor faced taking office. The Colbert administration attempted to solve the ongoing problem of violence against Russian immigrants. President Colbert signed into law a bill creating the Trump Memorial, which would be at the site of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Tower, which had had to be torn down after the plane's damage to the tower. The new Donald J. Trump Presidential Library was also to be funded by the government for rebuilding in Queens, New York. President Colbert's popularity stagnated throughout his term, and in the 2014 midterms, Republicans kept their majority in Congress despite minor Democratic gains. When 2015 came around, however, the economy went into recession. President Colbert was blamed for the recession, and his popularity dropped significantly. During the 2016 election, Senator and former Vice Presidential candidate William H. Bush announced his candidacy for President, stating that ¨President Colbert has let us down, but under a Bush administration, we will rise from this recession that our President has gotten us into¨. Senator Bush managed to win the primaries, and he selected former Secretary of State Mike DeWine as his running mate. Bush's popularity grew as President Colbert's sunk, and when the election came, the Bush/DeWine ticket won in a landslide against the President. Now, President-elect Bush has started building his Cabinet, and it is yet to be seen what path President Bush will take this country.
