A Mayor Prospect Considering: Alec Baldwin

Dan’s Papers hereby endorses Alec Baldwin for Mayor of New York. Baldwin has not announced he is running yet. But he has for a long time publicly said he’d like to get into politics. And after the collapse of Congressman Anthony Weiner’s reputation, Baldwin had aides put feelers out.

He’d make a great Mayor if elected, and he’d be elected in a landslide. The Democrats would vote for him because he is Alec Baldwin. And the Republicans would vote for him because he is the rock solid conservative Jack Donaghy of NBC’s “30 Rock.”

And there is something else. Indeed there is a whole lot of something else. Being Mayor of New York is largely about moving the needle a little bit this way or that as the great Ocean Liner that is this city glides slowly along into the future. Mayor Bloomberg has been able to do that. In prior years, Rudy Giuliani was able to do that and before that Ed Koch and Fiorello LaGuardia were able to do that. All were forceful personalities before becoming Mayor. [/expand]

And all of them said the Buck Stops Here. In addition, with the exception of Rudy Giuliani, who came to the reins of the city in dangerous times, all were in one way or another, entertainers. And in addition to that, none but Ed Koch came up through the ranks. They were all smart, quintessential New Yorkers who cared about the City. And they all just jumped right in and became Mayor.

Alec Baldwin is a funny, passionate, no-nonsense man who is What You See is What You Get. He has a great focus. He is extremely smart. And as I am a casual friend of his, I can tell you that more importantly, much like Mayor Bloomberg, he is filled with a vast limitless energy. He works on 10 things at the same time. He moves every one of these things along. And people often say—when does this man sleep? Yet he does it effortlessly.

I have written three memoirs about the people I know and knew here, these books all bearing variations on the title In the Hamptons. Two have come out and the third will be out in May 2012. Alec Baldwin wrote the preface to the second one. And in the third one, I wrote a chapter about him, finishing it up just a few weeks ago.

In that chapter, I tried to put together all the things I knew Alec had done in just this past year, either from my personal knowledge or from what I was able to gather up.

Read Here: Alec Baldwin at the Tonys with New Squeeze Hilaria Thomas

“He’s everywhere,” I wrote. “In the last year he starred in three movies, one Broadway show, played Jack Donaghy on the TV show ‘30 Rock,’ co-hosted the Academy Awards, hosted the awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, received an honorary degree from NYU, was a guest judge on the TV show ‘Marriage Ref,’ hosted a live television broadcast of the New York Philharmonic, was the host on ‘Saturday Night Live’ twice, wrote a book about the pain and inequities of divorce, starred in six commercials, the proceeds of one of which, a half-million dollars, he donated to The NY Philharmonic and to the John Drew Theatre in East Hampton, while, in addition, getting the business he touted in the commercial (Capital One) to match the funds. Also in the Hamptons, where he makes his home when not in Manhattan (he’s bi-coastal, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Hudson River), he performed the lead in the play Equus at the John Drew Theatre in East Hampton, hosted two fundraisers, founded a watchdog group to keep an eye on local politicians, co-hosted, with Billy Joel, a discussion about Joel’s film Last Play at Shea, and funded other programs for both the John Drew and the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor.”

He also narrated a TV program about the migration of penguins for a documentary on the National Geographic Television Channel. “And so,” he intoned, “the penguins march across the glacier in this great herd toward the Huckabee Shelf.”

Should this guy be Mayor of New York? Is the Pope Italian? (No?) Dan’s Papers becomes the first major newspaper in the New York Metropolitan Area to enthusiastically endorse him for that job. Mayor.

See Also: The Mayor of Retjivik Iceland: John Gnarr

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