“Too many actors have run for office … There’s one difference between me and them: I know I’m not qualified. In my opinion, Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t qualified to be governor of California. Ronald Reagan wasn’t qualified to be governor, let alone president. I was a vice president of the Screen Actors Guild when he was its president. My duties consisted of attending meetings and voting. The only thing I remember is that Ronnie never had an original thought and that we had to tell him what to say. That’s no way to run a union, let alone a state or a country.”
– Actor James Garner, writing about his distaste for actors-turned-politicians in his new memoir, “The Garner Files,” which was released Tuesday. A self-described “bleeding heart liberal,” Garner was asked to run for Congress in 1962 as a Republican (despite being a Democrat), and in 1990, Democratic leaders approached him about running for Governor of California — but he refused both offers.
