Newsweek speculates on whether other Hollywood types like Al Franken, Dennis Miller and George Clooney might jump into politics given the success of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Maybe they will, but I suspect all three are unelectable.
Each of these three have both engaged in relatively partisan and frequently extremely mean spirited attacks on those they disagree with. This is in contrast to Schwarzenegger whose campaign platform seemed to be that he a) opposed taxes, b) supports lots of spending, and c) loves children.
Frankly I was a bit surprised at the conservative bloggers and others who embraced the actor while he ran what had to be the most vacuous political campaign that I can remember watching. All of those ridiculous stereotypes that Ronald Reagan was stupid fit Schwarzenegger perfectly. For someone who apparently thought about public office for a long time, Schwarzenegger acted as if he had never actually thought much beyond the fact that it would be nice to be Governor.
And the thing is that this is not actually a bad place to be in American politics at the moment. With an elite political culture increasingly addicted to the nonsense put out by the Michael Moores and Ann Coulters of the world, a good looking candidate who really, really cares about the children looks to be a winning product (it got so bad, that I swear Schwarzenegger mentioned “the children” even more than John Kerry mentions Vietnam).