When Ronald Reagan entered politics in 1966, many people laughed. Imagine an actor thinking he could be a governor! The public attitude has shifted, though. When professional wrestler Jesse Ventura decided to run for governor of Minnesota in 1998, a surprising number of people found the idea "refreshing."

Now we have Arnold Schwarzenegger steering California, and the stampede is on. Next, I hear, Jerry Springer, former mayor of Cincinnati, is jumping back into politics, his stature much enhanced by his turn as a talk show host: This time he's planning to run for the Senate.

Alert the media: Civilization has ended!

Or has it?

Entertainers have been moving into politics for years. Reagan wasn't even the first. Broadway singer and actress Helen Gahagan Douglas won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1944. Song-and-dance man George Murphy served in the Senate from 1964 to 1970. Child star Shirley Temple grew up to be a delegate to the United Nations. Bill Bradley and Steve Largent came over from sports. Sonny Bono made the switch from music.

And then there's Jayalithaa. You've never heard of her? That's because she's from India. This former actress governs the major province of Tamil Nadhu. Yes, the phenomenon isn't limited to the United States. In the Philippines, action movie star Fernando Poe came close to unseating president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2004, and he was following in the footsteps of another actor, Joseph Estrada, who actually won the Philippine presidency, only to be impeached in 2001.

Indeed, in a free-wheeling capitalist democracy, it would be odd if celebrities didn't win high public office, since they have money and connections, they get media attention even when they don't want it, and by definition they have the highest name recognition around.

Something's changed
Nonetheless, I propose that the borders between entertainment and politics are eroding in a new way. To illustrate, I invite you to consider how we select a president.

At any given time, probably at least 100 million people in the United States are legally qualified to run for this office--they're native-born citizens, they're old enough, and they're not felons.

Yet only a few hundred of these millions have any actual chance. Long before any of the recognized president-selecting mechanisms have kicked in--debates, primaries, whatever--the 100 million have been winnowed down to a few hundred. How did this happen?

In earlier times, the winnowing was a lifelong process mediated by political parties. No one could get into the elite group of possible presidents unless they, first of all, made a choice early in life to go into politics. Then they had to join a political party. Then they had to make their name known with some public service like spearheading a drive to get a sewage treatment plant. Then they had to run for some attainable office, such as city council, and move up from there, rung after rung, building connections and earning favors, all the while relying on the resources of their political party to staff their campaigns.

In this trickle-up process, by the time people were in a position to run for president, they had accumulated a resume of relevant experience and held numerous positions in which they gave orders.

The studio system
The major political parties owned this traditional process, the way big studios once owned moviemaking. In the studio system, the various artists and technicians needed to make a movie were all under contract to one of a handful of big studios, so no one but the studios could make movies, even if they had the money. Now, people with moviemaking skills float around as independent contractors and producers assemble temporary teams around particular projects.

Similarly, in politics, the country is now crawling with freelance political operatives and independent consultants. People don't have to go through a long apprenticeship in public service to win high office. Anyone with positive name recognition and money has a shot. Instead of grooming stars in-house, the political "studios" go looking for talent to put under contract for particular "projects" (such as the governorship of California). A celebrity can assemble an instant staff and become a politician overnight without any experience in public policy, administration, and all that other boring stuff.

What qualifications?
No voter candidly lists running, singing, and acting as the primary skills they look for in a president (or governor). Successful celebrity politicians usually offer other arguments for their candidacy. When you look at these arguments, you see the difference between today's entertainer-politicians and earlier figures such as Reagan.

Ronald Reagan didn't go directly from the studio to the state house. He cut his political teeth as president of the Screen Actor's Guild, a labor union. His presidency there gave him hands-on experience as an executive making political decisions. George Murphy had the same credentials, having also served as SAG president. Bill Bradley was not just a basketball player, but a Rhodes Scholar, with serious intellectual credentials. 

With Sonny Bono, the resume gets fuzzy. With Jesse Ventura it breaks down.

Arnold Schwarzenegger had no political resume, but his supporters pointed out that he wasn't just an actor but a multimillionaire running a vast business empire. As such, they argued, he had been making executive decisions for years and his prosperity proved his decision-making prowess.

This may look like the familiar businessman's platform: "Vote for me: I must be smart since I'm so rich." Yet businessmen from William Randolph Hearst to Michael Huffington and Steve Forbes have proven that business acumen by itself cannot guarantee political success. But business acumen combined with whatever skill it takes to achieve celebrity--that's a potion of a different potency.

Ross Perot is an interesting transitional figure. Wealth and business achievements propelled his candidacy, to be sure; but what launched him were his appearances on the television talk show circuit where his salty, spunky personality made him a celebrity: our own lovable little big-eared, cracker-barrel philosopher. What sank him, finally, was his inability to sustain the image he had created, once the spotlight was shining on him full time. He quickly became a tinny, one-note figure of fun. His failure as a celebrity preceded his political decline.

The argument forged by the Schwarzenegger campaign can be adapted by other stars. What about Oprah Winfrey, for example? She runs a business empire, and superbly by all accounts. Well, guess what? Any idle search of the Internet reveals a grassroots movement swelling to draft Oprah for president, a movement held in check only by Ms. Winfrey's refusal (so far) to consider it. 

Who else is poised to make the journey from entertainment to politics? Speculation has swirled around:

• Ed Asner (because he, too, once ran the Screen Actor's Guild)
• Ben Affleck (because he's stumping for John Kerry)
• Kevin Costner (because he makes "cause" movies)
• James Wood (because he's made a name lambasting liberals)
• Dennis Miller (because he's got his own talk show)

Well, maybe some of those people will go to Congress, but the White House? I don't know. Entertainment figures may win legislative seats based on their opinions, but they don't win high executive office that way. The indispensable requirement for winning the presidency (or a governorship) is that people be able to imagine you as a leader. Actors have a leg up in this regard because they have a way to let the public have some experience imagining them as leaders before entrusting them with the role.

If that's the process, entertainment figures with a shot probably include:

• Bruce Willis--because he fights terrorists (see Die Hard)
• Harrison Ford--because he can land a punch (see Air Force One)
• Michael Douglas--because he can date without diminishing the dignity of the office (see The American President)
• Martin Sheen--because he's already been president (see The West Wing)

Where will it end?
In fact, I predict that someday we will supplement our existing mechanisms for picking a president--primaries, debates, etc.--with an audition procedure. Showtime has already broken the ground with American Candidate, they just didn't go far enough. In the future, the networks will collaborate on a television show called All in the President's Family (or some such) featuring a fictional U.S. president. Each week's plot will revolve around a real crisis, ripped from the headlines. 

In the year before a presidential election, each viable contender will get a guest shot on this show, playing the president. Once it's down to two candidates, they will take turns playing the president each week until the election. The writers will trade off, too, with Democrats scripting the show one week and Republicans scripting it the next. 

I'm joking, of course, but I'm also worrying that the joke may not be as far-fetched as I wish.