Maybe Anyone Can Be President

Maybe Anyone Can Be President:

"Among backers of various proposed constitutional amendments are members of both political parties and some of America's most liberal and conservative legislators. Both the incoming and outgoing chairmen of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which considers constitutional amendments, support the change.

'This restriction has become an anachronism that is decidedly un-American,' Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the past chairman, said recently.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who succeeded Hatch, said of Schwarzenegger: 'The guy has become governor of California. What more credentials could you ask?'

...In an outtake from the 1970s documentary "Pumping Iron," Schwarzenegger — not yet a U.S. citizen — is asked at a bodybuilding tournament when he will run for president. Schwarzenegger's firm answer: "When [Richard] Nixon gets impeached.

Moreover, Schwarzenegger as a potential president is a notion with a long history. In a 1991 satirical novel, "The Americans Are Coming!" Schwarzenegger defeats game show host Pat Sajak in a 1996 presidential election, overcoming "the old steroid stories and the Hitler stuff."

"It was meant to be a laugh," says author Alex Beam, now a columnist for the Boston Globe.

Two years after the novel, the notion of a Schwarzenegger presidency was dropped into a Sylvester Stallone sci-fi movie, "Demolition Man." In the movie, Stallone's character is frozen and awakened in 2032, when he is shocked to learn from co-star Sandra Bullock that Schwarzenegger has been president.

All that may still seem outlandish to Americans, but there is at least one place where a significant number of people anticipate a Schwarzenegger White House. A poll last year found that 37% of Austrians believe the governor of California will become president of the United States one day."