He says no. But lots of people are discussing openly the possibility of the Democratic party nominating a non-politician for the office of President.
The underlying logic would be that the president needs to represent the people, but he/she doesn't need to be an expert on law, or war or economics or education. The president has (or at least should have) a staff and aides to provide analysis and expert opinions. The president meets with other foreign leaders with a major role in diplomacy, and needs to communicate effectively with Congress and the people.
Michael Moore was the first person I heard who advocated this change, speaking just a week after Donald Trump was elected:
Moore, speaking on CNN’s State of the Union show, said the leadership vacuum that will result from the departures of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would best be filled by a well-liked celebrity.A CNN article discusses the possibility of Oprah Winfrey campaigning for the presidency. There is also a relevant article in New Republic.
“Democrats would be better off if they ran Oprah [Winfrey] or Tom Hanks,” said Moore. “Why don’t we run beloved people? We have so many of them. The Republicans do this – they run [Ronald] Reagan and the Terminator [Arnold Schwarzenegger] and other people.”
Moore continued: “Why don’t we run somebody that the American people love and are really drawn to, and that are smart and have good politics and all that?”
Other celebrities who might consider running for political office (not necessarily for the presidency) include Will Smith, Roseanne Barr, Angelina Jolie, Kanye West, and Mark Zuckerberg.
"Traditionalists" who cringe at the thought of celebrities invading politics might do well to remember that (IIRC) one of the concepts of the Founding Fathers was that state and national legislators should be ordinary people who could put aside their hammers and plowshares and travel to the capitol to manage the country, then return to their work (although they themselves were elite aristocrats).
Photo credit Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, via.
