Replacing the President of the United States with Bozo, the clown

By George on

 

One of the funniest stories about a U.S. president being so bad at his job that people wanted to replace him with a literal clown isn’t too far from reality.

Back in the 1920s, President Warren G. Harding was so famously inept that his own party regretted electing him. Harding himself admitted, "I am not fit for this office and should never have been here."—not exactly confidence-inspiring. His presidency was plagued by corruption, scandals (like the infamous Teapot Dome), and a general lack of leadership.

Things got so bad that by the time his successor, Calvin Coolidge, took over, there was an actual movement to replace future politicians with, well… anyone else. While Bozo the Clown didn’t exist yet, the sentiment was similar! In fact, a real clown named Pogo the Clown (better known as John Wayne Gacy—yikes) even ran for public office in the 1970s.

If we fast-forward to modern times, we actually did have a Bozo the Clown moment! In 1968, during the peak of the Vietnam War and political chaos, a man named Pat Paulsen, a comedian from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, ran a joke campaign for president. His slogan? "I've upped my standards—now up yours!" Americans, frustrated with the political climate, actually gave him a decent amount of support.

So, while no president was literally replaced by Bozo the Clown, history shows we’ve come close—both figuratively and (in Paulsen’s case) almost literally!

 

Location: Missouri, USA

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