“Fill your hand, you sons of bitches.” That would get legislation moving again, wouldn’t it?
News of Jeff Bridges’ U.S. Senate candidacy has been spreading like wildfire over the past couple of days.
OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. As far as I know, word of his candidacy has been reported only by Last Best News. And there may not be a candidacy.
A Billings-area woman, Libby Pratt, also known as Lizbeth, started a Facebook page and a Change.org petition on Friday urging Bridges to run as a Democrat in the race abandoned Thursday by Sen. John Walsh.
It’s entirely possible that Bridges does not even know yet that his name is being tossed around in this fashion. And though he’s had a residence in the Paradise Valley south of Livingston for something like 40 years, I don’t know if he is legally considered a resident of the state, one of the few qualifications needed to serve in the Senate.
Those provisos aside, like I said, wildfire.
Thousands of readers visited Last Best News on Friday and Saturday to read my story about The Dude, and my Facebook post about Bridges had been shared 200 times as of Saturday night. This is how landslides start, folks.
I’m no expert on Bridges the actor, and I don’t know that I’ve ever heard him utter a political opinion, but I am prepared to say of his potential candidacy, why not?
Considering how many no-account, obstructionist, plastic-haired, money-grubbing people are already in the House and Senate, how dare anyone say Bridges’ lack of experience should be held against him.
How many politicians, rusted to near immobility by the humidity in Washington, D.C., try to pass themselves off as being somehow outside the political establishment? Our fellow citizens in California turned to Arnold Schwarzenegger in their exasperation with politics as usual, and in Minnesota they turned to Al Franken.
If you’re going to have an actor, you might as well have one who can act. Bridges won a best-actor Oscar for playing Otis “Bad” Blake in “Crazy Heart” in 2009. Bad Blake was a broke-down alcoholic country singer — perfect for Montana.
And you might as well have an actor who is seriously cool. Very few film characters in decades have been as cool as The Dude was in “The Big Lebowski.” The Dude talked so slowly he could have filibustered all night with just a handful of sentences.
But there has been too much talk of The Dude. I wouldn’t mind seeing Bridges’ version of Rooster Cogburn in the Senate — sodden, over the hill, overweight and soured on the world, but still tough as nails, calm, methodical and, well, full of grit.
Hell for that matter, if only she were old enough, I’d vote for Hailee Steinfeld, who played Mattie Ross alongside Bridges’ Cogburn in “True Grit.” That girl could talk some sense into her fellow senators, or horsewhip it into them if need be.
There is another consideration, though it is entirely personal and should have nothing to do with politics. Bridges and I both have three daughters, and we both have daughters named Jessie and Hayley. If by some wild chance he had named his third daughter Pari, I would have suggested that he and I run on a presidential ticket together. I’d be the veep, of course.
After I posted the story about Bridges’ possible candidacy, readers chimed in with other suggestions for famous Montana residents who could throw their hats in the ring.
Ted Turner, Tom Brokaw, David Letterman? I guess Turner has been urged many times to run for president, but he is wise enough to know he can get more done on his own than he ever could as president, and he’s right. And if a man doesn’t want to be president, good luck talking him into running for the Senate.
Letterman’s too goofy, even to be a senator.
But Brokaw? He’s from South Dakota and he’s got the kind of voice that could revive the fireside chat. He seems damned smart, too, and he also wrote “The Greatest Generation.” Could somebody give him a call?
How about Huey Lewis? I know he outraged a lot of people when he cut off access to the Mitchell Slough on his property near Victor, but he doesn’t appear to be a bad guy. He’s playing at Magic City Blues in South Park on Sunday. Should somebody hold up a sign and ask him to run for Senate?
I’m still holding out for Jeff Bridges. But if he bows out, how about Jim Harrison, who is also at least a part-time resident of the Livingston area? The novelist and poet looks like a real-life Rooster Cogburn, and my lord the man can write.
OK, enough daydreaming. The Democratic Party is going to meet in a few days, go through the motions and pick a stuffed shirt who will get slaughtered by Rep. Steve Daines, the Republican candidate.
I can live with that. The Dude probably needs to abide out there in fantasy land, untainted by the grim details of real life in Washington. And Jim Harrison? We need good books a lot more than we need another pretty good senator.
