After enjoying a golden career in Hollywood, it’s no exaggeration to say that George Clooney has lost his movie-making touch of late. Last month, following a series of box office bombs both in front of and behind the camera, his latest directorial effort, Suburbicon, was pulled from 1,700 screens in the US and received scathing reviews (one critic wrote, ‘Watching it is like having your trouser-leg savaged by an energetic small dog’).
But there’s one real-life role that a large audience still hankers to see Clooney play: the American politician. Headlines asking if ‘a Clooney presidency could save America’ ( e Guardian) and stating ‘Why George Clooney should run for President’ (E! News) are becoming increasingly prevalent. Plus, one Democratic operative tells me that his wife Amal could be his ‘secret weapon’ in a bid for the White House.
Despite the speculation, Clooney himself has spent decades denying that he has designs on the Oval Office. In 2015, while promoting Our Brand Is Crisis, he insisted, ‘I’ve been asked that for almost 20 years now and the answer is just no. Who would ever want to live like that? I’m friends with a lot of those guys and I just think it’s hell.’
But then Trump happened and, by this September, Clooney appeared to have changed his position. ‘Would I like to be the next President? Oh, that sounds like fun,’ he joked. Next, he hinted at his retirement, telling an interviewer, ‘Look, I acted for a long time and, you know, I’m 56. I’m not the guy that gets the girl any more.’
Take a closer look behind his movie star facade, and it’s easy to see why the actor is touted as a plausible player who could save the Democratic Party a er Hillary Clinton’s devastating defeat last year. There have been his years of support and fundraising efforts for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. There is the time and money he’s invested in his fight for human rights in Darfur, for which he was given the title of UN goodwill ambassador in 2008. And then, as mentioned, there’s his 2014 marriage to human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin.
The American political landscape is no stranger to movie stars. Ronald Reagan successfully made the leap from actor to politician, becoming the 40th President of the United States in 1981. Reagan’s trajectory included becoming the Governor of California, a position later held by Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s understood Clooney won’t be running for the same position next year – he’s signed on to star in the TV adaptation of Catch-22, his only upcoming acting project – and yet, talk of his political drive persists.
This February, for instance, the New Statesman published an article by political commentator Sasha Abramsky with the headline ‘Why George Clooney is the candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2020’. I ask Abramsky – who lives in California – to explain his claim. ‘There is widespread discontent in this country with “politics as usual”, whatever exactly that might be,’ he says. ‘Come 2020, progressives will be looking for electoral wins in an environment in which the main political parties and their leadership are in crisis. Someone like Clooney, who brings the charisma of a star as well as the deeply held political views and principles of a long-time progressive activist, presents a fascinating figure.’
Clooney was born into a Democratic family: his late aunt, actress and singer Rosemary Clooney, campaigned for and was friends with John F Kennedy. His father, news anchor Nick Clooney, ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District in 2004. Clooney’s own interest in politics dates back to his days on ER. During the final season of the show, Clooney began to make telling movie choices that reflected his political beliefs, like Gulf War drama Three Kings (a satire about America’s amoral foreign policy) in 1999.
From that point on, Clooney has been unapologetically raising his political voice – and then following through. In 2003, he spoke out against George W Bush ahead of the Iraq War. By 2010, he launched the Satellite Sentinel Project, an initiative to fly satellites over the South Sudan to gather evidence of war crimes and ‘stop a war before it starts’. And last month, leaked documents revealed Luis Moreno Ocampo, Argentine lawyer and the first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), asked Clooney to send his satellites to Libya to keep watch over the late dictator Colonel Gadda . The actor politely declined, but it showed just how deeply his own activism has resonated around the world.
When I contact them, the California Democratic Party seem positively sanguine at the prospect of a President Clooney. Democrats already control the Californian governorship and have supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. is is not just any seal of approval. ‘You look at what George has done in terms of his activism, the films that he’s made, like Good Night, And Good Luck, that have a very clear political message to them,’ says their communications director John G Vigna. ‘They’re very consistent with the values that he has campaigned on.’
Clooney, Vigna says, could also be a welcome ‘fresh face’ in a political landscape that has changed dramatically since Trump’s win. at win has left the Democratic Party ‘doing some soul searching’ and left the field for their 2020 candidate ‘absolutely wide open in a way that it has never been before’. He even suggests that Clooney’s marriage could help bolster his chances as a serious candidate. ‘Amal is not the typical Hollywood spouse – [a relationship] that seems like it’s been negotiated ahead of time like a public relations move,’ he says. ‘She’s a woman of deep substance, enormous compassion, and also of enormous accomplishment. In the hypothetical where George Clooney runs for President, Amal would absolutely be his secret weapon.’
Vigna explains that there are currently as many as 30 names of Democratic candidates being bandied about, including experienced politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren. But, like Trump, Vigna says Clooney would be able to jump through the necessary technical hurdles and launch a run based on his ‘name recognition’ alone. ‘Clooney would be able to bypass the usual rigmarole due to two things: he would not be shy of attention from the media, nor would he be shy of getting financial contributions. Were he to run, he would absolutely be a contender in the sense that no one would be able to ignore what George Clooney has to say.’ In terms of Clooney’s next steps in ring up a campaign, Vigna notes that ‘anyone with significant financial resources’ can jump into the political ring.
Seth Masket, director of American Politics Studies at the University of Denver, agrees that President Clooney could happen. ‘Donald Trump ran at a time when the Republican Party was in a weak state and divided. Given Trump’s experience, or lack thereof, I think Clooney has a shot at this. If he did get the Democratic nomination then he’d have as good a chance as any other Democrat of actually winning.’
Whereas Reagan and Schwarzenegger were both staunch Republicans, Clooney – like every other celebrity Democrat in America – faces battling those who dismiss him as being part of the ‘Hollywood elite’. It’s something George is all too aware of in 2015, he called the Hollywood elitist tag ‘frustrating. I grew up as a Democrat in Kentucky in the ’70s... [I] didn’t move to Hollywood and become a Democrat.’
Political campaigner Jocelyn Wallace, who specialises in opposition research for the Democrats – otherwise known as mud- slinging between parties – believes he would face some very significant hurdles. She tells me she’s long heard whispers within campaign walls of Clooney’s objectives, but adds that his association as a member of the Hollywood elite could work against him. ‘He’s absolutely a potential candidate,’ she asserts. ‘But looking at it from an opposition research point of view, he’s going to take a lot of hits in terms of being far too liberal. Even with his marriage to Amal, who has defended controversial figures, from Julian Assange to Mohamed Fahmy [the Al Jazeera journalist jailed in Egypt]. Of course, she’s a human rights lawyer, but it could be used against them.’
It’s worth noting, however, that George has already shown himself to be a man who can put human needs above party politics. In 2005, he called on 41st US President George HW Bush for help in the wake of Hurricane Rita, which hit 26 days after Hurricane Katrina. Despite Clooney’s Democratic alliance, Bush agreed to help, later telling the crowd, ‘What he has done for the morale of this town is remarkable.’
Plus, he’s already winning the support of legitimate political insiders. Among them is Laura Schwartz, who worked for the Clinton administration for eight years from 1993-2001, beginning as a volunteer and becoming the White House director of events. Now a respected political pundit and speaker, she is resolute about Clooney’s future career in politics. ‘He was a big supporter of Hillary Clinton and he was certainly a supporter of Bill Clinton when we were in office,’ she says, though he and any other Democratic candidates would be wise to distance themselves from Hillary, considering the toxic reaction she still triggers from many American voters.
Schwartz reveals that Clooney has long looked up to Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman who served as Mayor of New York from 2002 to 2013 and who considered a presidential run in 2016 but later dropped out. ‘Like Bloomberg, George is at a point where he’s working out if he can be more influential as a private citizen, with his celebrity, wealth and connections, or if he can be more influential as a politician,’ she adds.
Either way, Schwartz predicts Clooney will now be involved in the political arena far more than his entertainment career. Indeed, his philanthropic efforts with Amal show no signs of wavering. Through the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which they set up late last year, the power couple have this year pledged to fund public schools for 3,000 Syrian refugee children in Lebanon, after partnering with UNICEF and Google. In the wake of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, they also teamed up with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) this year, giving a $1m donation to help the SPLC combat hate groups in the US.
Schwartz puts it down to him becoming a father, adding, ‘You always hear that in campaigns, “Let’s leave this world better for our kids than we inherited it.” George for years said that he would never have kids, and then he did [twins Ella and Alexander, born in June]. So, I think it’s only natural as a parent to all of a sudden realise, “OK, this has really got to get better because even after I’ve gone, they’re going to be here,” and do something about it.’ Clooney himself said, ‘I have always felt a great sense of responsibility to other people in the world, but when you have children of your own, you realise you are responsible for their lives in a way you haven’t been before. And you become conscious that you want to make an example of your life that they will follow.’
Meanwhile, Amal is no stranger to getting involved in US politics. In January last year, the activist and attorney travelled to Washington DC to urge Congress and the Trump Administration to take notice of the mounting human rights abuses and rising jihadism in the Maldives. Amal, whose client is former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed, told viewers of the Today show at the time: ‘US values are at stake, democracy is at stake.’ Amal reportedly left with a promise from senior US government officials that they would take serious action on her concerns. She also hinted to NBC correspondent Cynthia McFadden that this was just the beginning. ‘I think I’m exercising [my celebrity status] in an appropriate manner by continuing to do this kind of work,’ she said.
So could we really see one of Hollywood’s most famous actors replace Trump in 2020? Former NBC White House correspondent Chris Jansing tells Grazia not to rule anything out, but warns voters may crave an experienced politician. ‘Donald Trump has historically low approval ratings right now, which would argue against another “outsider” candidate’s success in 2020,’ she explains. ‘But unlike Trump, George Clooney has a long record as a humanitarian and activist and he’s put his substantial wealth behind those causes.’
Jansing asserts that a Clooney presidency has never seemed more exciting: ‘From a purely stylistic perspective, which matters in politics, George and Amal Clooney would be the most glamorous First Couple since the Kennedys. Studies show that no candidate before Trump had ever gotten as much TV time during a campaign. Clooney could rival, if not exceed that.'
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