Political Machine Launches Fran Drescher Senate Bid?

Former Nanny star and cancer activist Fran Drescher has thrown her hat into the ring as a replacement for Hillary Clinton in the US Senate. From New York Magazine:(h/t James Kotecki)

Fran Drescher wants to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. She says she's qualified. "I've just been given the appointment of U.S. diplomat," she said at a party for HBO's Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven at that restaurant on December 3.

"My title is public diplomacy envoy for women's health issues, and I just got back from a four-country European tour of duty. I believe next I'll be sent to the Middle East."

Also an anti-cancer activist, Drescher has been considering a run for office. "I've been very successful in getting a bill passed in Washington," she said. "I was thinking I'd take the next four years to lay some groundwork, but I'm throwing my hat in the ring." What else makes her a good candidate? "I'm an authentic and honest person," she said. "And I think Capitol Hill needs more of that."

When I saw this item, I had to suppress the urge to immediately take credit for it. I hate doing that almost as much as Al Gore does. But, I looked at the evidence, and it is at least whelming.

In August, at Barack Obama's acceptance speech, I spoke with Fran, briefly. Here's the video of that encounter, which I believe shows her being bitten by the politics bug.




Now, what you don't see in the video is that after that, every time I looked over at Fran, she was throwing major vibe at me. At the time, I chalked it up to a combination of my roguish, sunburnt good looks and the sight of Caleb Howe following me around barefoot, wearing only denim overalls and a straw hat, picking a banjo that he had made for himself that morning.

I now realize that it was those things, plus the siren song of politics.

I have also realized that I am the journalistic equivalent of Tom Cruise in Minority Report. I report the "pre-news."

Sure, any numbskull can point a camera at Don Fowler while he's being a D-bag, but it takes real talent to get video of yourself inspiring someone to run for Senate in a few months.

Any nitwit can point a camera at a Fox News reporter as a crowd attacks him. It takes a keen eye for pre-news to get a half-an-hour of footage of that same reporter just before he's attacked, and not get the attack.

Any simpleton can turn his camera on a counter-protesting lunatic. It takes prescience to know that the camera will be there, and become that counter-protesting lunatic.

The upshot here is that you should all go back and skim my old stories to find out more about tomorrow's news. That 7 year-old blogger? You'll already know all about him when he wins his first Pulitzer.

Or, you can stick with Caleb Howe, and see stuff that's already happened.