All of the people running for president from both major parties are old and have been in politics for a long time. That means they've made a lot of pandering attempts to get voters to like them (or at least to raise their profile). It's almost categorically a disaster when politicians write frivolous books, star in movies, or just try to be funny, but they keep doing it. Here are the most offensive examples:
1. Bernie Sanders had a bit part in an indie movie.
Bernie is so chill and generous that he's totally the kind of friend who will show up and do a part in your indie movie in exchange for pizza. In the 1999 movie My X-Girlfriend's Wedding Reception, a film about an Italian-Jewish wedding, Sanders played Rabbi Manny Shevitz (get it?!?!?!). Debbie Gibson is in, too.
2. Donald Trump's award-winning role.
Ghosts Can't Do It is a 1989 film starring Bo Derek, directed by her elderly husband John Derek. Appropriately, it's about an elderly man who kills himself when he can no longer bone his young wife, then becomes a ghost to help her run his business empire. Trump plays himself, or at least a vaguely misogynistic tycoon who seems a lot like him. The movie won four Razzies, including Worst Supporting Actor for Trump.
3. Ben Carson was in that Matt Damon conjoined twins movie.
The former neurosurgeon played "Head Doctor" in Stuck On You, the 2003 Farrelly Brothers movie that was tasteless and weird even for the Farrelly Brothers. Watch for him in an upcoming debate to remark on how he once split conjoined twins, forgetting that it was in a movie.
4. Ted Cruz's Simpsons reel.
Last summer, the Texas senator's campaign attempted to appeal to the Young People with a video proving that Cruz is just a regular human who enjoys regular human things, likeThe Simpsons. His impressions of Simpsons characters are almost as good as your high school best friend's, which is to say: terrible.
5. Hillary Clinton's book of letters to animals.
Way more embarrassing than leaked emails or Benghazi is Clinton's 1998 book Dear Socks, Dead Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets. Clinton edited this compilation of 50 letters sent by real (and real lonely) kids to Socks and Buddy, the cat and dog (respectively) who lived in the White House while she was First Lady.
The book was produced at the behest of publisher Simon & Schuster, looking for a sequel of sorts to Millie's Book, a book written by previous First Lady Barbara Bush from the point of view of her cocker spaniel. In other words, doing this book was just another chunk of First Lady BS Clinton had to endure before becoming a senator.
6. Jeb Bush's book of shame.
Mimicking the idea, if not the title, of John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage from 40 years earlier, Jeb Bush co-wrote a book called Profiles in Courage when he first ran for Florida governor in 1994. In addition to stories about anti-big government conservatives and a probably apocryphal tale about a person who donated their grand prize-winning McDonald's Monopoly ticket to St. Jude's Children's Hospital, the book contains "The Restoration of Shame." In it, Bush waxes on about how great the old days were, particularly how people back in this unspecified era embraced shame.
Society needs to relearn the art of public and private disapproval and how to make those who engage in undesirable behavior feel some sense of shame…
There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out-of-wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful. Infamous shotgun weddings and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter are reminders that public condemnation of irresponsible sexual behavior has strong historical roots.
7. John Kasich hates Fargo.
Kasich hasn't given much to the culture, because he doesn't like a lot of it. In his 2006 book Stand for Something, he said that he rented Fargo and was offended by the part where (SPOILER ALERT) Steve Buscemi winds up in a wood chipper. So, being a champion of liberty and free enterprise, Kasich tried unsuccessfully to get the movie banned from his local Blockbuster.