Get ready for a lot more celebrity endorsers on the campaign trail. In the closing weeks of the election campaign, President Obama and his supporters are increasingly turning to Hollywood’s A-List — always a fairly reliable base of support for Democrats — to help close the deal.
Obama’s always enjoyed healthy support from celebrities, despite a personal style that’s different from his Democratic predecessor.
“The thing about Obama is it’s not like Clinton. Clinton loves to hobnob with Hollywood and all that stuff. Obama’s not like that so much,” Rob Reiner, actor, director and Democratic stalwart, told TPM Monday. “He’s more of a cool character, he doesn’t really reach out to people like that. I like him a lot, I think he’s a really cool guy, a really down to earth guy and he’s really easy to talk to and stuff. But it’s not like he’s running all over trying to get celebrities. He just doesn’t do that. It’s not his style.”
Even if he’s not directly courting them at Clintonesque levels, celebrities are coming out of the woodwork to help Obama — both directly and indirectly — to bring home the win anyway. Morgan Freeman narrates a new Obama ad. Bruce Springsteen is hitting the trail for the president’s reelection bid. Samuel L. Jackson is telling disaffected voters to “wake the f*** up.”
On Monday, MoveOn released an ad directed by Reiner and featuring actresses Scarlett Johansson, Eva Longoria and Kerry Washington talking about women’s issues:
All three actresses are big Obama supporters, and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. With Election Day drawing closer, Reiner said, expect the celebrity appearances on the campaign trail to grow. It’s not just vanity, he said — celebrities may be especially important to Democrats this time around.
“There’s no question about it that celebrities draw attention, so that is an advantage. In the last week of the campaign, celebrates can play a big role in that it’s all about enthusiasm and turnout and exciting the base,” he said. “I think it is a turnout election. … What celebrities can do is that they can energize people in rallies. I’ve certainly done it for a number of candidates … people get very, very excited.”
Obama’s not the only one using celebrity endorsers. Kid Rock was recently on the trail with Paul Ryan, and Mitt Romney’s campaign is still relying on Donald Trump to raise money. But with polls tightening and Obama needing to regain momentum, it’s likely he’ll be the one with the largest cadre of celebrities on the trail in the coming weeks.
