As celebrity ties go, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton don't social station high on your distinctive presidential nominee's must-have list.
We can feign then that Sen. John McCain knew what he was doing when, in a recent ad, he attempted to associate Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama, the oft-described "rock star topology" of the 2008 crusade, with two women world Health Organization made stepping out of a car without whatever underwear a national obsession.
"He's the biggest celebrity in the reality," the ad's narrator intones as the screen cuts from pictures of Obama addressing a crowd in Berlin to images of Hilton and Spears. "But, is he ready to lead?"
Spears and Hilton did not actively, or regular passively, endorse Obama -- it remains unknown if they fifty-fifty know world Health Organization he is -- only McCain even so drew a line connecting the bill poster girls for celebrity fluff to a politician world Health Organization has likewise found his way onto the shroud of the celebrity powder store Us Weekly and the entertainment course of study "Extra."
"It wasn't exactly a coincidence that McCain chose those particular women for that ad," said Kelli Lammie, a communications professor at the State University of New York at Albany, world Health Organization studies the impact of celebrity endorsements on candidates.
"McCain is trying to wee-wee a connectedness there. Would you want either of them linear the country? Of course of action not," she said. "He is trying to suppose Hilton and Spears ar just fluff and so is Obama. He mightiness be great at wafture to cameras, but that doesn't beggarly he knows anything almost foreign policy."
Beyond simply comparison Obama with the lightweight celebrities, some have seen the ads as racially tinged, aforementioned Albert May, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University.
Celebrities sometimes bring a candidate much-needed attention. Oprah Winfrey helped draw 30,000 people to an Obama rally in South Carolina in December, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R- Ark., made his endorsement by Chuck Norris a fundament of his ad campaign.
"My plan to secure the border? Two words," Huckabee joked in an ad early on in the Republican primary. "Chuck Norris."
Another reason to keep celebrities around? Money.
In the primaries, Barbara Streisand gave $2,300 each to Democrats Sen. Hillary Clinton, quondam Sen. John Edwards and Obama. George Clooney likewise wrote a $2,three hundred check to Obama.
McCain got that same amount from both Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer and "Saturday Night Live" captain Lorne Michaels.
But not all celebrities are created equate, and patch you can't hold a candidate responsible for every crackpot, crackhead, miscreant or moron wHO pins a button to his lapel, Americans ar paying care. And on that point are some stars and socialites the candidates would prefer to have nada to do with.
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