Kid Rock Vs. The Rock, 2020 Presidential Race We Want To See

No matter what you think of the outcome, the 2016 presidential election was a game changer, establishing that in America, any celebrity can grow up to be president. In Michigan this week, Kid Rock tweeted an upcoming big — huge, actually — announcement and a link to what looked to be a Kid Rock-for-U.S. Senate campaign website.

It may not be real. Kid Rock could be, you know, kidding. We hope so, not because we think pop culture icons shouldn’t be senators — for example, look at Rock’s political antithesis, Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, who got his start on “Saturday Night Live” — but because the campaign we’d really like to see is Kid Rock vs. The Rock in the 2020 presidential race.

Actor and professional wrestling superstar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson hinted on this year’s season finale of SNL that he was running for president, leaving America wondering if his big reveal was a Pat Paulson-for-President shtick or if he figured that if Donald Trump could become president, he could, too. But this week, a West Virginia man filed paperwork for a “Run the Rock 2020” campaign to draft Johnson with the Federal Election Commission. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, like us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

As we now know, anything can happen in politics. Here are seven reasons we think a Kid Rock-vs.-The Rock presidential race would be awesome:

1. What we are talking about here, folks, is basically an industrial-sized can of badass. One of Kid Rock’s signature anthems is “American Bad Ass.” And The Rock? His portrayal of “Hercules” was hailed by critics as the biggest, the meanest and the baddest version of any Hercules to roar across the big screen. His badass reputation is further sealed by roles as the hero in “Walking Tall” and the “Fast and the Furious” franchise.

2. “Baywatch Battle” headlines practically write themselves. Kid Rock can revive photos of himself with former “Baywatch” star and ex-wife Pamela Anderson, while The Rock can campaign with the entire cast of this summer's “Baywatch” movie, complete with a former Miss Universe.

3. The Rock has enormous hands, each one large enough to “comfortably lift an 8-year-old by the skull,” GQ reported. And as we learned on a Detroit debate stage during the 2016 campaign, the size of a candidate’s hands matters. Big, manly hands could give The Rock an advantage.

4. Kid Rock can say he’s actually been in the White House and he knows how things work. He and another Michigan-born rocker, Ted Nugent, tagged along with Sarah Palin for a White House dinner with Trump, and Kid Rock was actually the dignified one.

5. How fun would a debate with these two be? Kid Rock tells it like it is, and questions linger about whether he could get through the debate without flipping someone the middles. Our money would be on The Rock, who artfully dodged some of GQ’s questions about his politics, diplomatically stating that if he were president, poise, leadership and taking responsibility for all citizens would be important.

6. America has never seen campaign events like these two could pull off. Kid Rock could go out and shoot some food and then cook it on his portable keg-shaped Badass Grill, maybe bring in Nugent (a possible running mate?) for a song or two. We also imagine a makeshift wrestling ring near a Pizza Ranch somewhere in Iowa, where The Rock parlays his signature WWE move, “The People’s Elbow,” into a nifty “The People’s Ear” campaign slogan.

7. In all seriousness, both The Rock, described by Vice.com as “easily the most likeable famous person on Earth,” and Kid Rock fiercely love America and Americans. Of Kid Rock, pal Jamey Johnson told Rolling Stone: “He’s the kind of guy that does the right thing even when no one’s looking. You’re more likely to go and find out some of the charitable things he’s done in his life from other people than from him, because he won’t talk about it. …”

Watch: Another Celebrity Named Rock Might Be Eyeing Political Office

Photos of Kid Rock, left, by Terry Renna/AP File, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson by Omar Vega/Invision/AP