I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but judging by this report from Drew Cline, editorial page editor of New Hampshire's Manchester Union Leader, the race for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination could prove to be very, very entertaining. Cline writes on the Union Leader blog:
I just got off the phone with former congressman and talk show Bob Dornan, who is considering. . . a run for President.
“I can't stand the thought of my party having as its three front-runners three open adulterers, Newt Gingrich, Giuliani, and McCain,” Dornan said.
“I've got one mission left in me, to come up to New Hampshire and tell the truth, and tell the Republicans you better find yourself a fresh face and not Rudy Giuliani who took his mistress around with him and then divorces Donnna [sic] who learns she was divorced sitting at home watching TV with her children.
“We need a fresh face if the Republican Party is going to appeal to an Orthodox Jewish, Evangelical or practicing Catholic.”
Aside from adultery, Dornan's other issue is homosexuality, which he called “a cancer in my party.”
He said he'd consider backing the right candidate or even running for President himself.
“Fifteen hundred bucks (to file for President)? It would be worth it if I could stand in front of a huge audience again and say, folks, is the Republican Party the party of values, the party of life?”
While it's true that today's Republican party boasts a kennel-full of barking-mad rightwingers, there's still no one quite as rabid as our Bob. Imagine Bob trudging through the snows of New Hampshire, in hot pursuit of Giuliani and McCain, howling about adultery. Filing fee for the New Hampshire primary: $1500. Bob Dornan on a rampage: priceless.
Of course, nobody in his or her right mind believes Bob could win. Even Bob seems to realizes he doesn't have a shot. But as R. Scott Moxley has pointed out before, Bob is a failed actor, and there's nothing a failed actor craves more than the chance to “stand in front of a huge audience”, to use Bob's own words. Forget the “one mission left in me” stuff– this is his last chance to get back in front of a national audience. And as Bob knows better than anyone, nothing attracts TV cameras so reliably as someone behaving outrageously. Bob knows how to behave outrageously.
So, a Dornan presidential bid, no matter how short-lived, would be a misery for the star players in the GOP primary, but very, very entertaining for the rest of us.
Run, Bob, run.
