Politics
Three Men Are Running For President To Impress The Batman Who Never Apologized
By Sean Vanity, . BSN Network. Satire.
LAKE COMO, Italy, with a satellite office in the Democratic Party's general direction: George Clooney, the actor best known for playing a doctor, a spy, a con artist and Batman in the one nobody brings up, has identified three men he believes could lead the country in 2028 and has begun monitoring their progress the way a fantasy football owner watches a third-string running back in week eleven.
The shortlist, reported this week, includes Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear. Clooney has not announced this publicly, has no formal role in any campaign and has not, to the knowledge of any of the three men involved, told them they are being evaluated. The evaluation is happening anyway.
Ossoff, 37, currently holds a Senate seat in Georgia he won by roughly 55,000 votes in a runoff that cost more per ballot than a Broadway ticket. He has been described by Clooney allies as "disciplined" and "camera-ready," which, when a Hollywood actor says it about a politician, is either a compliment or a job offer.
Pritzker, the governor of Illinois and heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, has been running what political observers describe as a shadow campaign since approximately the second week of Biden's term. He has given speeches in Iowa. He has given speeches in New Hampshire. He gave a speech in Nevada that three journalists and a hotel conference coordinator attended. Pritzker's net worth is estimated at $3.5 billion, which Clooney, a man worth $500 million, reportedly finds reassuring.
Beshear won reelection in Kentucky by nine points in a state Donald Trump carried by twenty-six, which is the kind of arithmetic that gets you put on a Hollywood shortlist before you have finished your victory speech. He is charming, moderate and from a state that is not going to vote for him in a general election under any circumstances currently known to meteorology.
Clooney himself has not committed to endorsing any of the three. He has, however, hosted fundraisers, written op-eds, publicly pressured Joe Biden to exit the race and then watched the subsequent campaign from a comfortable distance, which is roughly the same as a director who fires the lead actor, hires a replacement and then goes home before principal photography.
"George cares deeply about the future of this country," a person familiar with his thinking told reporters, using the sentence that every person familiar with every famous person's thinking has used since 1987.
It is worth noting, as a factual matter, that Clooney played Batman in 1997's "Batman and Robin," a film that holds a 10 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, featured a suit with anatomically specific rubber detailing and is considered by film historians to be the reason the franchise went dark for eight years. He has never apologized for this. He has since won two Academy Awards. The Democratic Party finds both facts acceptable.
Ossoff is polling in the low single digits in early hypothetical matchups. Pritzker is polling slightly higher, mostly in Illinois. Beshear is polling at whatever number a focus group produces when the moderator asks if anyone has heard of Andy Beshear and four people raise their hands.
Clooney, for his part, is scheduled to appear in two upcoming films, neither of which is a political drama, which is a shame, because he is clearly living in one.
The Batman suit had nipples on it. Just to close the loop.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.newsweek.com/how-george-clooneys-possible-2028-dem-president-picks-are-faring-12521898