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Beatty has been fairly high profile in his search for another political option. The lifelong Democrat recently attended an informal lunch hosted by Warner Bros. vice president Terry Semel on behalf of Bush. Bush remembered he introduced himself to Beatty and said, "I'm George W."

"I'm Bulworth," Beatty replied.

But Beatty's run is more than just a delusional muddling of fantasy with real life, according to Lear. Beatty first became active in politics during the presidential campaign of Bobby Kennedy. "Kennedy was becoming the kind of populist I think a lot of people are hungry for now before he was cut down," said Lear. Since then, Beatty has been involved in the campaigns of 1972 Democratic nominee George McGovern and the 1988 campaign of former Sen. Gary Hart. "He's been a robust citizen through all these years." Lear said.

Still, his friends concede that Beatty's flirtation with politics comes from the big sucking sound on the left of the political spectrum "One is pressed to find a true populist vote who could get any media attention," Lear said. "Nobody can name that person with those sensibilities that would get arrested in the media. Who will they pay attention to? Well, Warren Beatty."

Beatty may gain some political traction with the people who are most drawn to his movies -- baby boomers. "As boomers become the dominant political force, the attitudes of that generation are going to become reflected in voting behavior," said California Democratic political consultant Darry Sragow, who ran the failed 1998 California gubernatorial candidacy of Democratic millionaire Al Checchi. "Boomers like choices. "

Yet Sragow thinks those who think Americans desperate for change will stampede the Beatty bandwagon will be disappointed. For all their whining, California voters, at least, demonstrated last November that they are by and large satisfied with the status quo. "We had a guy run for governor, Gray Davis, who ran on his résumé of government experience. That would have gotten him killed four years earlier," says Sragow, whou thought incorrectly that Checchi's lack of a political résumé -- and his personal millions -- would lure disaffected voters.

Still, Sragow left open the possibility that a real run by Beatty could change the political equation, if not the agenda. Sragow pointed to Perot's run in 1992, which helped focus the debate on deficit reduction. "Timing is everything," he said. "If the right person with the right message came along, could he galvanize liberals and have-nots? It's certainly possible."

Perot built the Reform Party with his charisma and his wallet, though he was rebuffed by the party rank and file in last month's convention in Michigan. But his legacy remains. While the Reform Party struggles to find its identity, it is still a viable congregation of the politically disaffected that must now be considered as part of the American political equation. Could Warren Beatty do for the left what Ross Perot did for the center?

Bill Moyers may have put it best: "It took an actor to dramatize for conservatives the ideas that changed politics in the early '80s," he told Huffington. "Perhaps another actor can help all Americans see how private money is overwhelming public life. If Warren can speak the truth to power on the stump as well as he did in 'Bulworth,' he can change politics, too."

And as Huffington says: "Is the thought of Beatty for president any more surreal than the reality of Denny Hastert for speaker?"
salon.com | Aug. 14, 1999

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