Not Down With McCain? Clint Eastwood Says He’s No Longer A Republican

During the “Changeling” Q&A at the New York Film Festival, one blogger had the cojones to ask a tangential question not related to Clint Eastwood’s drama starring Angelina Jolie, but about his political status. A lot of groans and exasperated sighs were heard from the audience (and maybe even ours), but it is an election year and it’s right around the corner. What could have been a trainwreck part of the Q&A actually turned out to be a pretty interesting answer. Formerly a registered Republican, Eastwood said he’s no longer down with the party. In fact, he sounded unconvinced and delusional with both parties and said he hadn’t been very active in politics and said he was a registered member of the Libertarian party, which is pretty fitting if you think of the Lone Wolf-like characters of Eastwood’s Spaghetti Western and action bad-boy days.

“Yes, I started out as a Republican in 1951 as a young twenty one year old in the army. I wanted to vote for Dwight Eisenhower, because like all politicians promising a lot of things, he was promising we’d go to Korea and end [that] war,” Eastwood said of his early political leanings. “That’s a brief history,” he chuckled.

“But the Republican party, like the Democratic parties have changed dramatically in the fifty-some years I’ve been involved in [politics], so I’ve drifted to more of a Libertarian point of view…. The leave everyone alone and let’s not overregulate [concept] was very appealing to a guy like myself who grew up in the ’30s and watched my parents struggle in the depression.”

“Nowadays, everyone is promising anything, that’s the only way you can get elected,” he said sounding skeptical. “You have to promise to give people all kinds of stuff, like cars, it’s like an Oprah show… It’s kind of perverted politics as far as I’m concerned. Whether Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama… whatever happens, who knows… It’s a very confusing world we’re in.”

Confusing indeed. But still, you can’t waste your vote on a party that doesn’t really have a say, right? America certainly needs to do away with the two-party system, but in the meantime vote Obama or stop reading our blog (if we knew you’d vote McCain, we’d add a filter that would block you). Ok, that’s our political digression for the year. Btw, Eastwood said he wouldn’t be giving up acting which some made into headlines, but duh, he already starred in a movie this year that he’s directing called, “Gran Torino,” so what made you think he stopped?

Check about 2:13 into the video for Clint’s thoughts on his politics. PS, it’s interesting to note that Eastwood was on The Daily Show last night, but Jon Stewart failed to talk politics with him at all. Or at least, from what we saw. Many of us were still buzzing about from the VP debate. Without getting into it too much Palin’s woman-of-the-people shtick worries us as it plays in Middle America well. Who cares if she’s an idiot. They’re not looking for that.