Professor Elam

As you may have heard, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert is running for President.  Click for the unofficial site.  Interestingly in fairness to all he wants to run in both the Rep and Dem primaries in South Carolina.  While this will no doubt provide a much needed relief from what has been an entirely scripted, boring campaign by nearly everyone involved, the reason I mention this is to remind you that yes

everything new is old again, there are few new ideas under the sun specifically comedians running for President. And the parallels are remarkable.

In 1968 comedian Pat Paulsen also ran for President, pledging he would not run if nominated and would not serve if elected. The similarities between the two  are amazing.  Once again popular culture seems to predict rather than follow such events.

Both comedians rose to fame on a then popular comedy show, Colbert on the Daly Show and Paulsen on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

The stock market had just hit 989.03 for the first time in 1966. similarly the  Dow just hit a new high above 14,000.

An unpopular war provided the backdrop for both shows.  Indeed the Smothers Brothers finally went off the air due to their comments about LBJ and the war.  Daly is a bit smarter taking jabs at both parties though primarily the Republicans.

In b both instances the President’s popularity had dropped significantly.   Johnson for whom the Presidency ad been a dream though an accident due to the Kennedy assassination, actually chose not to run again in 1968 rather than face the voters over the Viet Nam War.  Bush cannot run again but prospects for his party do not appear good given the 2006 mid term elections. 

The comedians style is similar, poking fun at conventional wisdom and politics.  Each enjoyed a rapid rise in popularity once discovered on their respective shows.  Colbert got is own show on Comedy Central after proving popular on Daly, Paulsen would get other TV gigs based on his basset hound droll appearance.

This is happening forty years to the year.  The fact that comedians could make fun of the process in both instances suggests that the extreme low ratings for actual politicians at each time registers a public dissatisfaction with all of them and so they take delight in someone who spoofs the entire process.