Editor's Note: This year's unconventional mix of presidential prospects often seems more like fodder for the gossip column than the political pages. Thus, we offer a departure in style..
BEST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WE EVER HAD! That's the headline The Donald must dream of in his lair at Trump Tower.
Trump - who is flirting quite publicly with the idea of running for president on the Reform Party ticket - misses the constant attention of the tabloids. It has been years since the real estate mogul's marriage to Ivana ended in divorce, and Marla Maples moved in, declaring to the world that Donald was the '' best sex I ever had.'' Since then, Trump has split from Marla and written about ''The Art of the Deal'' and ''The Art of the Comeback,'' and now is plotting ''The Art of the Campaign.''
And so it was Thursday that Trump penned a column for The Wall Street Journal that began with the headline: ''America Needs a President Like Me'' and ended with a not-so-subtle promotion, noting that his ''upcoming book spells out my beliefs in much geater detail.''
Forget all that talk about how the country was ready for a sedate year after the Monica Lewinsky scandal led to the impeachment of President Clinton. The tabloidization of Campaign 2000 is in full swing. Take the events of Wednesday. Republican presidential hopeful Gary Bauer called an extraordinary press conference to deny a gossip column item that he was having an affair. Hours later, actor Warren Beatty, who has freely admitted his many romantic liaisons, drew a phalanx of reporters to hear him tease about a possible presidential bid.
Like bookends to a bizarre month in presidential politics, the Trump and Bauer events highlighted the extremes. The twice-divorced Trump, in an interview, boasted about his dates with supermodels, and insisted that a poll of 100 people in the National Enquirer was a ''very powerful'' reason to run, even though the survey was unscientific and has not been backed up by any other poll.
Bauer, who is running for the social conservative vote, brought his wife and three children to his Washington press conference, then swore that he has always been faithful in his marriage. Why the proclamation? Bauer said he was responding to an item in The New York Daily News gossip column, the Daily Dish, which said in full: ''What presidential candidate is praying that a former secretary doesn't go public with her claim that he's been having an affair with a twentysomething woman?'' That ''disgusting'' item, he said, was aimed at him.
On the Democratic side, meanwhile, former New Jersey senator and NBA star Bill Bradley, the author of ''Life on the Run,'' seems to have his opponent, Vice President Al Gore, on the run. Gore's campaign will be in production at a new location, in Nashville, while the staff tries to sort out creative differences.
The Reform Party nomination is up for grabs and is likely to be influenced by a former professional wrestler, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who is pushing Trump to run.
No wonder that Beatty, the Hollywood actor, director, and producer, sees the need for a true reform-minded candidate. Beatty starred in and wrote ''Bulworth,'' the Oscar-nominated movie about a rap-singing 60-year-old senator who dallies with 26-year-old woman. In 1999, reality may mix with fiction. Apparently, Reagan biographer Edmund Morris, who invented a fictional character to tell the former president's story, has spotted a trend.
Beatty better watch his backside. Actress Cybill Shepard, star of ''The Last Picture Show,'' ''Moonlighting,'' and hair-color commercials, says she is seriously pondering a bid.
So, you might ask, what's new about Hollywood and Wall Street taking over politics? Hasn't that been going on for years? Haven't big-name politicians been taking millions of dollars from these same interests who help mold policy behind the scenes? And wasn't there some B-movie actor who blazed this trail? (See Reagan item above.)
Precisely the point, say the upstart presidential prospects.
And if they're all publicity stunts?
What if Trump is hoping to sell more condos, Beatty is hoping to hype his movie (now in video stores), Bauer is hoping to get some attention, and Shepard just wants to hawk her forthcoming book, tentatively titled '' Cybil Disobedience.'' It won't be the first time a Hollywood or New York publicist dreamed up a wild scheme to get a client's name in the papers.
Already, the buzz about Beatty and Trump and others has led to more stories about them than about some of those people who really are running for president. Indeed, Beatty got more attention for his non-announcement last week than Bauer did for his seemingly made-for-television denial of an affair.
This is a familiar strategy in Hollywood. Let the buzz seep out slowly and build up interest as long as possible. Just ask the producers of '' The Blair Witch Project,'' the cut-rate movie that soared at the box office based largely on buzz.
No wonder that one candidate's dream might be called ''The John McCain Project.'' The buzz on the Arizona senator's autobiography, ''Faith of My Fathers,'' has been great, putting it at No. 2 on some bestseller lists, and the word is that the movie, uh, campaign may be even better.
Indeed, most of the mainstream candidates, including the long shots, are taking advantage of their celebrity to appear on television and hawk their books. In some cases, the book tours may be better financed than the campaigns.
And the Hollywood honchos know this: Sometimes the sure-thing blockbuster fizzles, while the ''sleeper'' leaps ahead of the pack. George W. Bush take note: Word on the street in Washington is that some agents are angling to have your version of the campaign script rewritten.
Michael Kranish is a member of the Globe's Washington bureau.
