As the primary season approaches its climax, each voter is faced with a choice: Is it better to back a candidate based upon the opportunistic ramblings of cable-news talking heads or the endorsement of the voter’s favorite actor? Folks who filter their beliefs through those of a television or movie personality risk surrendering their stake in actual issues. Then again, they’re secure in the knowledge that they’re for the same guy as the Fresh Prince. Who are these actors, and how might they help — or potentially destroy — the campaigns that are so carefully conducted by their buddies? Glad you asked! —Dan Amira
| CANDIDATE | ENDORSED BY … | ROLE IN CAMPAIGN | ASSET OR LIABILITY? | John Edwards |
Kevin Bacon |
Playing guitar at events, signing memorabilia for supporters. | Liability: Questionable loyalty. Bacon, as the Six Degrees of Separation game attests, is rather promiscuous with regard to choosing film roles. He may have chosen to endorse John Edwards when he overheard his agent saying the candidate’s name. | Rudy Giuliani |
John Voight  |
Stumping for Rudy in Florida and California. | Asset: Experience. This will be Voight’s second role in a “mission impossible.” | Mike Huckabee |
Chuck Norris  |
He is almost literally everywhere at all times on the campaign trail, and usually directly behind Huckabee. | Asset: Security. Seeing as how Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird, we’re guessing he could protect Huckabee in the event of an attack by a crazed proponent of the income tax. | Dennis Kucinich  |
Sean Penn  |
Endorsed Kucinich in fiery speech in San Francisco this December. | Liability: Wackiness. Kucinich doesn’t need any more kooky. Unfortunately, that’s what Penn — who recently said that “Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, and Rice, if found guilty [of treason], could have hoods thrown over their heads, their hands bound, facing a twelve-man rifle corps executing death by firing squad” — has on offer. | John McCain |
Wilford Brimley  |
Traveling on the Straight Talk Express with McCain. | Liability: Oldness. Can McCain, who already drags his mother around, really afford to seem any more elderly? | Barack Obama  |
Will Smith  |
Undefined. Has offered to serve the Obama campaign in any capacity it sees fit. “Barack represents what I feel is the future of the optimum survival of America,” Smith has said. | Liability: Naïveté. Whatever Smith knows about the “optimum survival of America” he learned on the set of I Am Legend. | Hillary Clinton  |
America Ferrera  |
Co-chair of Hillary’s youth outreach program, Hillblazers. | Asset: Diversity. The star of Ugly Betty not only gives Clinton an in with Latinos, but also the all-important “nerd bloc.” | Which Candidates Should Worry About the Actors Who Endorsed Them? A Graphical Guide
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