Endorsements, branding and misinformation

Politics and Hollywood have always had an interesting relationship with each other. In my lifetime, I've seen huge movements like the "Rock the Vote" campaign that was very publicly supported and endorsed by P Diddy and a few other huge names back in 2007-2008 around the election time of President Barack Obama.

This movement created a record-breaking 2.5 million registrations among young people. Had those celebrities not endorsed Rock the Vote's cause, it's a lot less likely that they would have had as much feedback from young people. Following suit, it looks like President Obama is seeking some celebrities for a little help promoting his potential reelection this November.

The Tennessean was the first newspaper recently to obtain this "wish list" of celebrity supporters that Obama is requesting. A couple of celebrities whose names have graced this strange list are Jay-Z (which is redundant since he has been a public supporter since 2008), Maroon 5's Adam Levine, Arcade Fire, George Clooney and a bunch of others.

I guess I'm a little confused as to what this is supposed to do for President Obama. He has always been seen as somewhat of a celebrity as well as a politician, but why would he write and release a wish list of supporters? However, I do understand the benefit of publicly supportive celebrities. It boosts politicians' image and google-ability, making them more marketable to the younger, not-so-politically-interested demographic. Is it smart, though? I'm not sure about that.

What I noticed in 2008's Rock the Vote campaign was that it was very important to the organization that everybody who is able to vote should vote. That's what the P Diddy commercials said, anyway.

While I agree that political involvement should absolutely be encouraged, I'm not so sure that obtaining celebrities to boost political status is such a good idea. A portion of the 2.5 million voters who registered because of the movement were actually quite uninformed about what they were even voting about.

I think the celebrity involvement of the last election, which was primarily based on Obama (although the whole Sarah Palin / John McCain thing did get a lot of flak from Saturday Night Live), was what ultimately led to him winning the election. Again, I don't think this is a bad thing necessarily, but with these youth voting movements that rely on celebrities for fuel, there was hardly any emphasis on how important it is to educate youth on the candidates and the election in general.

The whole idea of celebrity endorsement should bother more people. It's like somebody saying, "Hey, I'm not good enough on my own, but I'll pay you a ton of money to make it look like I'm cool so I don't have to do any work!" Honestly, if Obama wants attention from young voters again, he should be straightforward about it and not capitalize on his already apparent pop-culture icon status.

It's a little unfair. As much as I am on the Obama bandwagon, I think it might be a little unwise to only elect a president because of his popularity in the media. Running a country is serious business, and I'm not sure why people haven't felt the weight of that fact yet.

Even though I'm bothered by this whole thing, I'm excited to see which people jump onboard with Obama this year leading up to the election. Obama actually has a lot of public non-supporting celebrities against him, which could make this interesting.

According to rollingstone.com, Pink Floyd co-frontman John Waters pretty much is completely against Obama and told him to "develop bigger cojones." Waters claimed that Obama's foreign policy, among other things, is very obviously against what he believed. Other celebrities joining Waters on his stance on Obama include Matt Damon, Barbra Streisand and Jane Lynch, who each have different bones to pick with Mr. President. He definitely has his work cut out for him.

Of his wish list, one has already gone public with their opposition to his request. Country trio Lady Antebellum told Entertainment Weekly that they had no intentions of taking any public political stance.

I hope people are not swayed by what celebrities are interested in just for the sake of the celebrity themselves. It's important to make informed decisions, especially when it concerns the wellbeing of an entire country. There is plenty of information available to read up on candidates for the upcoming (yet still far away) 2012 presidential election.

For information on voting and the election, go to www.usa.gov/citizen/topics/voting.shtml. Do additional research on the presidential candidates if you're planning to vote—don't let celebrities make up your minds for you. Make your own decisions and exercise your rights safely!