Legend has it that the song "You're So Vain" is either about Mick Jagger or Warren Beatty. The latter is now making noises that he might throw his hat into the ring to take on Arnold Schwarzenegger if nobody he deems capable of winning against Herr Gropenator joins the race.
The speculation about a Beatty candidacy has been flying ever since his
politically-charged commencement speech at UC Berkeley yesterday. He said in the speech that he "didn't want to run for Governor." However, in his next breath, Beatty said, "I'd do a hell of a lot better than he has done."
Arguably, the speculation about Beatty as politico has been in the background since the movie Bulworth, a Beatty-directed, Beatty-written, Beatty-starring effort from 1998. In the flick, Beatty portrays a suicidal liberal politician who has a contract put out on his life. While waiting for the hit men to do their job, Bulworth decides to commit political suicide as well: tell the truth.
Beatty has been active in the California Democratic Party for just about all his career in Hollywood, and it was for his political activism, not his movies that he was invited to speak at UC Berkeley.
Beatty does also have a fair amount of baggage he'd bring to the race, truth be told. He was notorious for his sexual excesses during the '60s and '70s, although he and his wife Annette Bening have been together since 1992. He also directed the movie Reds, a brilliant piece of cinema but which portrayed Communist activist John Reed in a heroic light.
Regardless of these potential stumbling blocks, could Beatty be the Great White Hope against Ah-nold and his moneyed GOP constituency? This race is certainly getting interesting now.