President Iger?

By now, you've surely heard the news that Disney CEO Bob Iger has stepped down. Maybe out in the heartland, you know, real America, this barely raises an eyebrow, but here in Southern California, it's about a 5.1 on the Richter scale.

At the risk of resting on my laurels and wiping the dust off placards of glory from another era, Iger and I have history.

A little more than 20 years ago, when everyone who works in advertising today was still discovering hair on their bodies or practicing the Hammertime dance, my partner John Shirley and I found ourselves in a huge pitch at ABC headquarters in NYC.

Bobby, sometimes, mostly when he's not around I call him Bobby, was at the head of the table. We clicked. We won the account. We did some work no one cares about anymore. End of story.

But it wasn't.

Five years ago, we (my family and I) walked into a restaurant in Culver City. Iger and his wife were seated at an adjoining table, chatting with the chef. I recognized him right away. And, get this, he recognized me!

I went over to shake his hand and he said (verbatim), "I thought that was you. I saw this big bald guy with the bushy mustache and thought, hey that's Rich."

I'm not kidding you, he remembered my name.

We spent a few minutes reliving my 2 &1/2 seconds of fame. And how he leveraged the success of our ABC campaign into a billion dollar promotion. And how I didn't.

And then our two paths diverged.
But have they?

There is rumor that Bobby stepped down from Disney so he could make a run at Donny. And in a brokered convention scenario, snag the Democratic nomination for the President of the United States.

Can you imagine?
If you can't, I can.

I can imagine Bobby calling me and asking me to run his campaign.

I can imagine cities bathed in big, beautiful billboards, boasting hard hitting, razor sharp witty lines that would take down the current regime. (Though not on a yellow background, that shit's been done already.)

I can imagine myself sitting at the table with the country's greatest policy thinkers and getting the opportunity to chime in on the important issues of the day: unrestricted street parking, luxury boxes for jurors, and tax credits for burly old people who can bench their own weight.

I can imagine riding the Iger wave all the way to the White House. And I can imagine President Iger appointing me to a special Cabinet position, Secretary of Snark, with a starting salary of $450,000 a year.

Ok, maybe that number is a little unrealistic. But the rest is definitely possible.