From Clint Eastwood to Scarlett Johansson, the 2012 presidential election is quickly becoming a celebrity-studded affair. At both the Republican and Democratic conventions, celebrities stood up for their preferred candidate with albeit mixed reviews.
Celebs have been chiming in about their preferred picks online, too, through social media. Through tweets and blogs, a number of Hollywood stars have made their positions known – some of them perhaps not so successfully.
Lindsay Lohan, who makes headlines on and off the screen, has made no secret about the fact that she’s an Obama supporter. On the biggest night of the Democratic convention, Lohan was tweeting her support of fellow actress Eva Longoria as well as the President, including retweets of key speech quotes. And then, she got a little more political. According to Laura Donovan of Mediaite, Lohan tweeted to the President in response to his statement about cutting taxes for the middle class, “we also need to cut them for those that are listed on Forbes as “millionaires” if they are not, you should consider that as well.” (Donovan has the screenshot).
When I went to check out the dialogue today, I couldn’t find it. Tweets about the evening – including retweets of bits of Obama’s speech remain as well as what appears to be an Obama endorsement from the actress.
But the controversial tax tweet appears to no longer be on Lohan’s own stream. I did find references to the tweet, including a number of criticisms directed toward Lohan. It seems that many of the folks who follow her on Twitter don’t quite have the same sympathy for millionaires as Lohan does. One, in particular, from a PR professional, advised Lohan to delete the tweet saying, “You should probably delete that tweet and by probably, I mean definitely.”
It appears that Lohan listened since a search of her Twitter stream today doesn’t appear to show the original tweet. I’ve checked a few times now – since Twitter does have the occasional hiccup – to see if I can find the original tweet and it still isn’t showing. Since I’m now curious, I’ve asked Ms. Lohan if she deleted the tweet. I’ll let you know what she has to say if and when she replies.
The whole thing makes me wonder, however, about a bigger question: does celebrity support in a political race change your opinion about candidates either way?
