Billy Jack runs for President against Bush in the GOP primaries!

[cryofan]

Tom Laughlin, best known for helping bring martial arts into American pop culture with his 1970s "Billy Jack" films, is now throwing his punches in the political arena.

The 72-year-old actor, who lives in Camarillo, is one of 13 candidates running against President Bush (website - news - bio) in the Republican primary.

Laughlin, who first ran for president as a Democrat in 1992, said he's campaigning to draw attention to a two-party system he deemed "so corrupt it can't function anymore."

He described himself as a "messenger" candidate and said he wasn't disappointed by the New Hampshire primary, in which he earned 154 votes to Bush's nearly 34,000.
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more here:
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0204/123257.html

This story is getting some presss. I would not be surprised to see this story go big. Billy Jack was and still is a very well known and beloved movie character.

I sure would like to see a debate btw Billy Jack and Bush. I bet Billy Jack would walk up to Bush before the debate even started and give him this line: "I'm going to take my right foot here,
and put it right across the side of your face, just for the fun of it." Wham!

[deutsey]

1. I thought he was dead

Oh well, the way things are going for Bush, even the corpse of a B-movie star could take him down.

Speaking of "Billy Jack", didn't Bush play Bernard in the movie (the rich punk that Billy forced to drive his new car into the lake)?

:evilgrin:

[jean]

2. Good - let's hope Billy Jack can draw some R voters

[ixion]

3. "I'm going to take my right foot, put it right there, and you know what?"

..."there's not a damn thing you're going to be able to do about it."

Evil Sheriff: "Oh really."

Billy Jack: "Really"

I think that's one of the best scenes in movie history. Billy Jack rocks! :-)

[tomreedtoon]

4. Well...but...

...from what I've heard, Laughlin has been something of a megalomaniac. This would only be funny if he really put forth a serious challenge to Bush.

Besides, he's already done it, after a fashion. He made a movie (which I think has disappeared into the Bad Film Vaults) called "Billy Jack Goes to Washington." Billy Jack goes to fill out a term for his district's dying Congressman, and runs afoul of evil CIA/CREEP types. Included in the bombastic screen play is an assassination of a good and noble female journalist inside the Lincoln Memorial.

During his week or so of filming exteriors of Washington monuments, Laughlin claimed he discovered conspiracies of power that made Watergate look like the Pasadena Doo-Dah Parade. Right. Pull his finger; it plays "One Tin Soldier."

It would be more interesting, and more fun, if some lifelong Repubican party bigwig mounted a candidacy against Bush. At this convention. Knowing that he would fail, but registering his protest with the way that Bush has fumbled everything. Bush knows that liberals and moderates hate him, but how would he handle a revolt in his own party? Especially since Republican conventions tend to be coronations in every year anyway?

[ldoolin]

5. Billy Jack Goes To Washington

I've seen that, and it's easily the weakest of all of Laughlin's films Laughlin was clearly turning into some kind of right-wing, Perot-type populist by that point. Rather typical for the late 1970s during the era of Proposition 13, stagflation, and such.

But I have to admit the other Billy Jack films are guilty pleasures, with great lefty politics permeating them. The Trial of Billy Jack may be long winded and awful from a cinematic perspective, but it's one of the most strident left-wing calls to rebellion ever to become a mainstream hit film. Could anyone imagine what kind of outcry the freepers would have if such a film were released today? It would make their whiny protestations over Bowling for Columbine look minor by comparison.