Advocates for causes ranging from Cancer to AIDS to animal kindness–and certainly presidential aspirants–love to engage celebrities on their behalf. Famous people hawking a cause or a candidate are thought to raise an issue’s or office seeker’s visibility and build support. But are celebrities effective in these pursuits? This poll released today by Harris Interactive suggests Americans are decidedly mixed on the subject. “Americans are pretty divided on that as just over half (51%) say that these celebrities make little or no positive difference to the issue they are promoting while just under half (45%) say they make a large or some positive difference,” the Harris organization writes. They also find age makes a difference on the question of celebrity advocacy effectiveness:
When asked specifically about celebrity involvement in politics, the results get even more mixed–with partisanship, not surprisingly, playing a big role.
“Perhaps because the more ‘glamorous’ celebrity endorsements seem to go to Democrats, there is a strong partisan divide on this question. Two-thirds of Republicans (66%) say that celebrity involvement in campaigns is a bad thing while almost half of Democrats (45%) say it is a good thing. Half of Independents (48%) also believe this involvement is a bad thing.” Finally, the report also contains some good news for Barack Obama. According to Harris, Americans believe Oprah is the most effective celebrity advocate. Others who do well include Bono, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and George Clooney. The bad news for McCain: Sylvester Stalone didn’t make the “effectiveness” list–although in fairness to Rocky, I don’t think they asked either.
