Professor Elam

My candidate for the come back kid award is clearly Arnold, read the latest at
Pumping Irony .  Bush, Al Gore, the Kennedys, please, all of these grew up in a life of privilege and had national name recognition from the get go. 

Arnold came to prominence in a 1970s film called Pumping Iron, hence the title of this article.  The point was that back then Arnold was able to ‘psyche out’ his opponents in what is essentially a male beauty contest.  Arriving in the States with a physique, a desire to succeed, an accent that everyone said would fail him in Hollywood and a name no one could pronounce or spell.  He was of course advised to change his name. His retort, ‘by the time I am through everyone will know my name.’

And so he found roles that suited him and did what no body builder every managed to do before, go from strictly low budget b movies to huge box office success.  (Historical note, there were plenty of body builders around during the 1960s Roman Chariot movies and none of them ever got out of the chariots.)  And along the way he married a Kennedy while espousing neither the Republican or Democrat party line. 

He was continually underestimated.  Everyone mistook the accent and body building for some sort of bulked up low IQ type, wrong.  I understand he has also done will investing in real estate et al. 

My point, if you had take any of these other guys, Bush, Gore, Kerry, pick one, and said OK, you come in with an Austrian accent and a name no one can spell, where do you thing they would be today?   In politics, winning is everything.  ie, would you rather go to the Arnold S ‘library’ ( think Conan in I Max) or the Bush II library at SMU (think movies of the Christmas pooch) or the Clinton library on Ark (Bill goes to India)?  Gee, let me ponder on that one………