Orson Welles was fond of telling the story of how Franklin D. Roosevelt, shortly before his death, encouraged Welles to enter politics and run for Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate seat in 1946.  Welles gave it some consideration but ultimately, he decided not to run.  He was, after all, a movie star and, in the mid-40s, he had yet to be exiled from Hollywood.

Welles later said that a part of him regretted not running because, if he had, his opponent would have been Joseph McCarthy.  Welles assumed that he would have easily beaten McCarthy and therefore, the McCarthy era never would have happened.  Of course, the truth of the matter is that there’s no guarantee that Welles, as someone who had spent most of his life in New York and California, would have even won the Democratic primary, that Welles would have defeated McCarthy in the general, or that some other Senator wouldn’t have launched an anti-communist crusade in McCarthy’s place.  But Orson Welles was never one for false modesty.  That’s one thing that made him such an important and exciting filmmaker.

Welles also said that, despite his regrets, he was ultimately happy that he didn’t run because he would have felt the need to then run for President.  President Welles!  Imagine that.  (Actually, it probably would have been a disaster but still …. President Orson Welles!  If nothing else, a Welles presidential campaign would have spared America from having to look at Adlai Stevenson for two straight elections.)

Today’s scene that I love provides a glimpse of what an Orson Welles political campaign might have been like.  In this scene, from 1941’s Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane runs for governor and gives the political speech of his life.  Sadly, as we all know, Kane would never be governor and he would never again be as beloved by the masses as he was in this scene.  Instead, he would die isolated, alone, and wishing for his childhood.