I remember various Democrats, back in the days of President Bonzo, holding out hope that Robert Redford would toss his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination. Of course, anyone knowing Redford would know the chances of that were infinitesimal -- despite his movie career, "Ordinary Bob" is actually a rather shy introvert who would never want to deal with an elected role -- but it was still the conclusion that only a glamorous, liberal movie star had a chance against The Gipper.
For that matter, I remember some Democratic voices in the mid-'80s, noticing that Trump was a registered Democrat (for the time being), holding out hope that he would mount a "moderate" center-left bid for our nomination, on the grounds that "we need a businessman, not a politician."
Everyone was convinced that Reagan had opened the floodgates for non-politicians, particularly considering his popularity ratings. Nonetheless, for the next twenty-eight years, the office was occupied, respectively, by a former Vice-President, a former Governor of Arkansas, a former Governor of Texas, and a former Senator from Illinois.
As I've written elsewhere, I'm personally agnostic on the issue of an Oprah run. Obviously, if the choice in November 2020 was between her and Trump, there's no doubt who would get my vote. But I would have to see her actual ideas and principles, as spelled out during the crucible of a primary campaign, and how they compared to those of any other challenger, before deciding who would get my pre-convention support.
What is troubling, to me, is the correlation with the desires for a non-politician candidate during our dark days of the Reagan '80s. At the time, it spoke more to the vacuum in the Party itself, and I fear the same may be playing out today. In an ideal world, the proper response to the sudden Oprahmania after last night's speech would be to honor her for her accomplishments in the private sector and her inspirational role for multitudes of Americans, but to recognize that we had a whole series of potential candidates who were smart, principled, charismatic, and already had impressive résumés in elected office. Insofar as there seems at this moment to be a lack of such a candidate behind whom the Party could unite, there will always be dreams of a non-politician outsider (in the old days, the phenomenon was termed "the man on the white horse," although, in this case, the gender would have to be changed) who will come in to "save" the Party...and, from what I've seen, Sunday's #Oprah2020 tsunami suggests that desire is in full-swing among Democrats in 2018.
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