The Race for Prez Is Already Reality TV. Let's Cast the Movie Version.

If you have followed the posturing, watched the debates, and endured television’s talking heads during the elimination rounds of the presidential race, then you are either a super-patriot, a masochist, or a bed-ridden invalid being cared for by Freddy Krueger.

Only Rick Perry can play Rick Perry. He has both the looks and the intelligence to make it big in Hollywood. (photo by Jana Birchum)

The presidential race – which is less dignified than the three-legged race at the Bozo Day Picnic – is billed as a contest to bestow the title of “World’s Most Powerful Person” on some poor schmuck who will immediately age twenty years before our very eyes.

The first thing to remember about the presidential race is that anyone who actually wants to be president of the United States has to be insane. Announcing you are throwing your hat in the ring should automatically earn you a one-way ticket to the booby hatch. Think about it: From the moment you are elected, at least 150,000,000 people automatically hate you … and that is just in your own country. Being president is worse than starring in your own reality show. You may have the power to destroy the world, but not to have a dalliance with an intern and get away with it. How long before TMZ or Fox News presents an in-depth analysis of the presidential stool? So the very act of wanting the job should be absolute proof that you are not qualified.

But the presidential race is a show. A show filled with drama, comedy, and pathos. Having spent many years in Hollywood, I of course think about which thespians should be cast as players in the film version of this national farce. First of all, Meryl Streep has to be Hillary. I know, I know, she already played Margaret Thatcher. But just think what Meryl could do with an Illinois/Arkansas/New York/Ivy League accent.

Tom Cruise is Ted Cruz! Who else could so deftly deliver the sly grin that implies, “When I have your phones tapped and a nuclear arsenal at my disposal, we’ll see who’s crazy, won’t we?” If we get Cruise as Cruz, we can make this picture! The scene where Tom as Ted cooks bacon with a machine gun would rank up there with Al Pacino’s machine gun performance in Scarface. The writers at the Church of Scientology should commence preparing the Oscar acceptance speech. What’s that you say? Tom can’t do a convincing Spanish accent? No problem, neither can Ted.

Beau Bridges would be perfect as Jeb Bush. He knows exactly how it feels to live in his brother’s shadow. Scott Walker is tougher to cast. If he walked in right now and had me laid off, I wouldn’t know him from Rick Santorum. That’s it ... Santorum plays Walker and vice versa. Stunt casting.

Why I see Kristen Wiig as Elizabeth Warren, I do not know. That’s how show biz and politics work sometimes – you don’t know why something is right, but you just go with it and see what happens. And if a natural-born American like Tom Cruise can play a Canadian, then a Canadian like Donald Sutherland can play Bernie Sanders.

Marco Rubio – Mario Lopez. Chris Christie – Meat Loaf. Only Rick Perry can play Rick Perry. He has both the looks and the intelligence to make it big in Hollywood. And it is a malicious rumor with absolutely no foundation in fact that Perry thought the debate about illegal aliens concerned the ones whose spaceship crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. Think of the drama surrounding the Aggie’s bid to become both the second former cheerleader, and the second former Texas Governor, to be married to the First Lady!

Of course the real key to the success of this film is to find someone with the range to play Donald Trump. Forget the hair! We can create the hair, either with the mane from Charlie the Lion, or through extensive computer graphics. Expensive, but well worth it. Daniel Day Lewis is our greatest actor. Kenneth Branagh brings that whole Shakespearean market into play. But how about casting against type? Yes, indeed! Salma Hayek as Donald Trump proves that Mexico is also sending us actors.