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Wednesday, Sep 20, 2000 8:16 PM UTC

10 celebrity candidates for exile if Bush wins

Showbiz luminaries are threatening to leave the U.S. if the Republican candidate is elected. Here's one writer's passenger list for the first flight out.

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Topics: George W. Bush, Britney Spears,

Recently, a spate of Hollywood luminaries have threatened to go into self-imposed exile should George W. Bush be elected to the nation’s top post in November. Director Robert Altman kicked off the trend earlier this month, when he announced his intention to move to France should Bush defeat Al Gore.

“If George Bush is elected president, I’m leaving for France,” said the director, speaking from France.

Not to be outdone, Alec Baldwin, the “biggest moralist” Kim Basinger knows, threatened to follow suit. A tentative Basinger then realized: “I guess I would have to go too.” The foiled Baldwin has since retracted his earlier statement.

But even foreign Americans are jumping on the bandwagon. Elton John, speaking at a fundraiser for the vice president, expressed his concern about America, a place where “hundreds of friends live.” Stating that he “did not want this country to have to live under George W. Bush,” John declared himself to be “a great believer in the vice president,” adding “His views completely coincide with mine.”

John, a British subject, is not eligible to run for office in the U.S. However, should his self-described surrogate be defeated in November, we may experience an unexpected boon in “celebrity” defections.

“The vice president … wants this country to go forward,” John said, “and if you vote for him, it will go forward. But it’s back to the Dark Ages, I’m afraid, if you vote for the other guy.”

Will a victory for the Shrub cost the nation Michael Douglas? Perhaps, but if so, W. would be a small price to pay.

Every dark cloud, after all, has a silver lining, so here’s hoping our loss is also France’s.

Top 10 celebrities we hope will leave the country if George W. Bush is elected President:

No. 10 Barbra Streisand: Furious at Loretta Lynn for hogging Lincoln Bedroom.

No. 9 Bill Clinton: Terrified of furious Barbra Streisand.

No. 8 Julie Chen: Marked for banishment regardless.

No. 7 The entire Baldwin family: Why stop at just two?

No. 6 Jerry Lewis: They asked for it.

No. 5 Britney Spears.

No. 4 Britney Spears: Oops, we did it again.

No. 3 Madonna: Seizing opportunity to reinvent herself as “French Madonna”

No. 2 Oprah Winfrey: Bush’s aversion to “psychobabble” untenable.

No. 1 George W. Bush: He’s just dumb enough to do it.

Carina Chocano writes about TV for Salon. She is the author of "Do You Love Me or Am I Just Paranoid?" (Villard). More Carina Chocano.

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