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A Google search for “celebrities for McCain” yields 2.120 results. Low, right?
Well, get this: A Google search for “celebrities for Obama” produces 690 results.
Take that, doubters of Hollywood’s conservative creds!
And who are these RepCebs? I’ve mentioned some of them before, but here’s a list from a recent Weekly Standard article:
Dean Cain
James Caan
Jon Voight
Robert Davi
Lou Ferrigno
Adam Carolla
Lacy Chabert
Angie Harmon
Victoria Jackson
Gerald McRaney
Jon Cryer
Lorenzo Lamas
Kevin Sorbo
Patricia Heaton
George Newbern
Robert Duvall
Jerry Bruckheimer
I note two that two stars of the Godfather series are on the list.
When I read this I paused for a moment to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating 60s-style.
There’s no question that Hollywood leans liberal.
OK, that’s not the sentence that prompted the pause. It was actually the rest of the paragraph:
But the list of celebrities affiliated to some degree with the GOP goes beyond Clint Eastwood and the Governator. And some of them might surprise those who don’t keep track of such things: “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels, hip-hop artist LL Cool J, “Easy Rider” turned Ameriprise pitchman Dennis Hopper, actress Angie Harmon, wrestler-turned-movie-star Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson.
Lorne Michaels I kinda get (maybe). LL Cool J — I always suspected that LL didn’t stand for “ladies love,” but rather “lifetime libertarian.” The Rock? Yeah, I can see that, too — he has a little bit of Chuck Norris in him.
But Dennis Hopper always struck me as the symbol of American counterculture (not that being a Republican is necessarily incompatible with that, but still). I mean, the guy starred in, he DIRECTED, Easy Rider — sometimes under the influence of perception-altering substances. That’s the movie in which he uttered the classic line, “Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.” He was in Apocalypse Now, in Blue Velvet. I could go on (but this is a blog post, not War and Peace).
So, you’ll forgive me if I didn’t buy the Republican story at first. But here’s an interview of him from a few years back in which he confirms that he’s a GOP supporter:
He’s a Republican who has been voting that way since Reagan: “I liked Clinton but I voted for Bush then and I voted for Bush Sr and I’m definitely voting for Bush again.” All his life, from his childhood on, he’s been surrounded by Democrats and was very much to the left himself in the Sixties, marching with Martin Luther King and protesting against the Vietnam War.
The reasons he gives for swinging to the right are the usual conservative complaints about soft-bellied government and sponging welfare cheats. He was even moved to write a herogram to Newt Gingrich, the rabble-rouser of the far Right, on his withdrawl from politics: “Your resignation saddens me. When you want to run for president, I will be there. You have done so much more than anyone in a long time for our country. Make some money, have a life, come back, kick ass.”
30 Rock has it all wrong; it’s a big tent after all.
I’m amused by celebrity hyperbole.
About a month ago, Susan Sarandon (a terrific actor, a terrible political commentator) vowed to move to Canada or Italy if John McCain wins the presidency.
Without commenting on the merits of her views, I found it interesting that 7+ years of George Bush didn’t prompt her to move abroad, but Barack Obama’s loss to McCain would. It’s a curious stance, in no small part because both Canada and Italy are led by conservative prime ministers: Stephen Harper and Silvio Berlusconi, respectively.
But I digress.
Today I came across another celebrity opinion on politics. In this case, 71 year-old Robert Redford — again, a terrific actor, but a lightweight in the political category — opined at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland that if Obama loses to McCain the party’s over for the Democratic party.
I think Obama is not tall on experience . . . but I believe he’s a really good person. He’s smart. And he does represent what the country needs most now, which is change.
I hope he’ll win. I think he will. If he doesn’t, you can kiss the Democratic Party goodbye. I think we need new voices, new blood. We need to get a whole group out, get a new group in.
Really? The Democrats are well on their way to solidifying their control of both houses of Congress, regardless of whether Obama wins or loses.
What I found even more interesting are his views on why Obama merits the White House: Despite the fact that he lacks experience, Obama’s smart, a good person, and represents new blood and change.
I know plenty — plenty — of people who are smart and good and representative of change if they were to be elected to the presidency.
Having those characteristics can’t possibly be enough.
Can it?
Everyone from John McCain to Christopher Hitchens to Paul Begala to . . . Jessica Cutler has at one point or another observed that Washington, DC is the Hollywood for ugly people [insert snarky comment here], and there’s certainly some truth to the notion that politicians are in many, many ways wannabe stars of the screen.
So am I, so I get it.
(And, of course, there are the fine examples of entertainers taking their talents to the political world. Reagan, Fred Grandy, Sonny Bono, Ahnold, Clint Eastwood, Fred Thompson . . . all Republicans.)
(Second parenthetical: This is the first time that it occurs to me that both Jesse Ventura and Ah-nold starred in Predator, and that both went on to become governators.)
Here’s the most recent example of a national political figure making a cameo appearance in a feature film. Very cool. Ka-pow!
El Blogeador 