PRPG:
Celebrity Candidates

3 Celebrity Presidential Candidates

August 17, 2015

After all, Ronald Reagan was an actor, and Donald Trump was a reality TV star. Here are some other unlikely presidential candidates from the world of entertainment.

Celebrity CandidatesRoseanne

The stand-up comic and Roseanne star announced her candidacy for the 2012 election on The Tonight Show. Among her campaign promises: Wall Street bankers committed of crimes would be required to give up income over $100 million and be sent to re-education camps. Roseanne ultimately ran for the left-wing Green Party nomination…and finished in a respectable second-place. While rumors she’d be selected as Green nominee Jill Stein’s running mate proved false, Roseanne was invited to speak at the 2012 Green Party convention. (And 50,000 people still cast write-in votes for Roseanne in the national election.)

Joe Walsh

Two things reached critical mass in the late 1970s: the popularity of country-rock band the Eagles, and the gas crisis. (Americans waited in long lines to buy albums by the band, and in long lines at gas stations to pay a lot for gas, respectively.) In 1979, Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh announced that he was running for president. Essentially a joke campaign, Walsh promised that if elected, his solo hit “Life’s Been Good” would be made the new national album, and that gas would be free. (If elected, he wouldn’t have served: he was only 33 at the time, younger than the constitutionally-mandated minimum of 35.)

Pat Paulsen

Paulsen was a comedy writer and cast member of various TV variety shows in the 1960s and 1970s, primarily ones hosted by the Smothers Brothers. It was the Smothers who suggested a joke campaign by the dry-witted comedian in 1968 as a running segment on their show. The campaign was very tongue-in-cheek; for example, he responded to all criticism of his plans for the country by calling reporters “picky,” or, like in the video below, literally spoke out of both sides of his mouth. Paulsen repeated his campaign in 1972, 1980, 1988, 1992, and 1996. (He never won, by the way.)