Hollywood’s never-ending train wreck Lindsay Lohan said that because of her obvious concern for the country’s employment situation, she is endorsing Mitt Romney for president—“as of now.” From contentious world leaders to perpetual election losers to racists and scandalous sites, see the biggest endorsements a presidential campaign could do without.
Everyone can stop holding their breath. The kingmaker has spoken. Lindsay Lohan is supporting Mitt Romney at the 2012 election. The tabloid mainstay and occasional actress broke the news at a red-carpet event Thursday night, telling reporters, “I think employment is really important right now.” (Some sources have her saying “unemployment.”) “So, as of now, Mitt Romney. As of now.” What changed the former Obama supporter’s mind? She declined to elaborate, only teasing, “It’s a long story, but you’re going to have to wait for that.” Perhaps she’s still miffed that she never received a response from the Oval Office after tweeting that Obama should consider cutting taxes “for those that are listed in Forbes as ‘millionaires.’” This is the thanks that the Obama campaign gets for giving Mean Girls a shout-out on Oct. 3rd?
To his critics on the right, President Obama is already thought of as a socialist who wants government to take over the world. So nabbing the endorsement of Hugo Chávez, the socialist Venezuelan president whose policies often rankle the U.S., probably wasn’t a strategy the Obama campaign was pursuing. But Chávez wasn’t about to hold back. “If I were American, I’d vote for Obama,” Chávez said during a state television interview. Chávez called Obama a “good guy” and said he believes Obama would vote for him if the leader of the free world could vote in the Venezuelan elections.
Mitt Romney has been trying to paint himself as the family-values candidate, so he likely won’t be embracing his latest endorser. Porn star Jenna Jameson told a reporter in August 2012 that Romney’s the guy for her. "When you're rich, you want a Republican in office," she explained. The endorsement comes at a bad time for the Romney’s campaign, which has been trying to discredit the idea that his economic policies would help the wealthy but not the middle class. In the past, Jameson has supported Democrats, including Bill Clinton, because she felt they were more sympathetic to the porn industry.
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It's never great to have fictional supporters, but a high-profile Sacha Baron Cohen character has to be one of the worst. At a press conference in New York supporting his new movie, The Dictator, Cohen, in the persona of the titular character, threw his support behind Mitt Romney. '"He has the makings of a great dictator," the "dictator" said. "He is incredibly wealthy but pays no taxes, and it's not much of a leap to go from firing people to firing squads and from putting pets on the top of a car to putting political dissidents on the top of them." The dictator's reminder of all of his worst attributes should worry Romney, but what should perhaps worry him even more is the possibility of an endorsement by Cohen's Brüno.
Keith Bedford, Reuters / Landov
Newt Gingrich’s cheating ways have earned him some flack, but hardly hindered his progress in the GOP primary election. He’s acknowledged his infidelity and apologized, so now it’s generally something that’s skirted around, even in debates that address the question of fidelity head-on. The fact that he’s been able to emerge from his personal scandals unscathed is probably a relief for Gingrich, but it’s unlikely that even he would want to be praised for his infidelity, especially by a pro-adultery social network that facilitates affairs for married people. Ashleymadison.com, a website with the slogan, “Life is short. Have an affair,” has put up a billboard in Pennsylvania with an image of the former speaker of the house “shh”-ing alongside the words, “Faithful Republican ... Unfaithful Husband. Welcome to the Ashleymadison.com Era.” The site’s founder and CEO, Noel Biderman, explains the endorsement. “Now that Newt is the leading contender in the race for the GOP nomination, we felt compelled to make a point to illustrate how times have changed when a serial divorcée/adulterer is capturing the hearts of the American people,” he said. In a tight race that seems to see candidates scrambling for whatever votes they can get, Ashleymadison’s endorsement, while honest, is probably not the type of support Newt was looking for.
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If you have as unlucky a political record as Christine O’Donnell, why would any presidential hopeful want your help? O’Donnell’s claim to fame is losing races for Senate in Delaware every two years—in 2006, 2008, and 2010—and for her embarrassingly unfortunate television ads and campaign gaffes. Nevertheless, she thought she’d help out Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid by offering her support. O’Donnell did her best to help Romney’s reputation as a flip-flopping opportunist, saying he has “been consistent since he changed his mind.” She may not be the worst person to endorse your campaign, considering the support other candidates have had to reject, but she certainly isn’t the best.
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Like Christine O’Donnell, Dan Quayle’s four years as vice president left one word in the minds of Americans who remember him: “loser.” He was the guy who couldn’t spell potato and got so tongue-tied so often that he had a high probability at any moment to be spouting nonsense. Association with him was even a liability for his son Ben, who won a Senate seat in Arizona in 2010 but endured a lot of mockery in the process. So Mitt Romney probably isn’t too thrilled to have Quayle’s endorsement, which he offered in early December. Will voters get to wondering why all the losers like Mitt?
Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
Evangelical megachurch pastor John Hagee is a lightning rod for controversy for things like predicting the antichrist will be a partially Jewish homosexual and preaching that the Holocaust was an act of God. Hagee’s bizarre beliefs about the Jews have been described as both Zionist extremism and anti-Semitism, but either way he’s a toxic asset for a political campaign. (Unless of course you’re Rick Perry, who hosted Hagee at his infamous Houston prayer rally.) So when Hagee endorsed John McCain for president in 2008, McCain was obliged to reject the gesture. “I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them,” referring to Hagee’s sermon on the Holocaust.
The past decade was the time to tell voters that electing the other guy would be a win for the terrorists. But what if the terrorists don’t agree? That’s what happened to John McCain in 2008, when an al Qaeda–affiliated website posted a message saying they hoped McCain would be elected because he would be most likely to continue the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, increasing the scale of American defeat.
When it comes to cartoon characters, could anyone be more out of touch than The Simpsons C. Montgomery Burns, the devious billionaire who looks down on the people of Springfield because they don’t have enough money? Burns is clearly a Mitt Romney man, already measuring drapes for his room at the White House. After all, the presidency is the God-given property of the Republican Party, according to Burns. But there’s one thing that could hold Romney back: the tale of Seamus, the family dog that Romney tied to the roof of his car during a road trip. But Burns intends to fix this for the man he calls Mitt, the Mormon mensch. He tries to entice a lookalike pooch to pick a steak-holding Mitt Romney over a broccoli-offering Barack Obama. The dog just jumps out the window.
