Warren Beatty has been a movie star most of his life. And he's dabbled (he'll hate that word) in liberal politics for four decades. He even managed to merge his two personas in "Bulworth," the darkly comic movie tale of a senator gone wildly unpolitic.
Now, at 68, Beatty has bulldozed from stage left into Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's political traveling show, literally and figuratively. With his movie-star wife, Annette Bening, at his side, he was turned away from a Schwarzenegger rally in San Diego on Saturday, and landed on the front page he has openly coveted.
As Beatty trampled the governor's special-election campaign trail, talk has turned to whether he's paving his own path to next year's gubernatorial race.
"I have to give you a stock answer," Beatty said Wednesday. "I don't want to run for governor, but I would have no inhibition at all.
"Let me put it another way: I feel I would have a perfect right to change my mind. Everyone does have that right."
Beatty has never run for anything, but he's basked in the spotlight of speculation before. Every few election cycles, he falls into his "I'm not saying I'm running, but I'm not saying I'm not running" persona.
In 2000, he stirred up a brief flurry of publicity that he might be interested in running for president.
But people familiar with Beatty or with the rough world of politics, or both, say there's no reason to believe this time will be any different.
Frank Mankiewicz, veteran advisor to numerous Democratic candidates, who has known Beatty for 30 years, put it another way: "No. I can't believe he would run. But he does want to figure. He thinks he can be valuable."
Longtime Hollywood political activist Marge Tabankin agreed: "He's got a film career and a house full of kids, and while I would never say, 'never,' I would say that it's the debate that excites him at this point." (Beatty's four children are ages 5 to 13.)
"I don't think he will run," said Rob Reiner, the director who spoke out frequently against Proposition 75, which would have limited public employee unions' ability to raise money for political campaigns, and has expressed interest in running for statewide office. "He likes expressing his opinions -- the ability to get his ideas out there. But he doesn't want a day-to-day job working on policy. It's very difficult work, and it's tough on a family. This is a 24-7 job. With California, it's like running a country."
