Will They Get in a Lather for President Bulworth?

If anybody can make anti-establishment liberalism cool again, one guess is it’s Warren Beatty. He rapped leftie litanies in "Bulworth," got pink in "Reds" and went up against a vast right-wing conspiracy in "The Parallax View" (not to mention pretty much embodying the shaggy-haired, hard-partying Love Generation for the meat of his career). Now he’s coyly hinting about pulling the ultimate anti-Reagan as an actor running for President -– from somewhere to the left of Bill Bradley. "It’s no secret that I am a liberal Democrat," told the New York Times on Wednesday, making clear his displeasure with the current options -– and admitting even he doesn’t feel he’s presidential timber. "There certainly should be someone better. That's not to say that I don't have very strong feelings on a lot of things that aren't being spoken."

He’d make a helluva gadfly. In a presidential field that had shrunk to four even before the primaries even appeared on the horizon, Beatty would command the press coverage to make the necessary splash, and the Hollywood connections -– galore! –- to fill the war chest in a hurry. He’s done more womanizing than George W. Bush and at 62, still has a better head of hair than Gore’s, Bradley’s and McCain’s put together. Women love him, or at least they used to, and wife Annette Bening has already played in a couple of movies set in the White House "Mars Attacks!" "The American President"). Plus, Beatty is serious about politics and excited about an issue, campaign finance reform, that’s heading toward the front burner and makes Al Gore queasy. "Its tentacles reach into every other issue," he told the Times. "I fear we're getting closer to a plutocracy than we want to, and I believe that deep down the people want to do something about that." May he and the new chairman of the Reform Party exchange phone numbers very soon.