Lohan Effect: Will Late-Deciding, Low-Information Voters Pick Romney?
Lohan Effect: Will Late-Deciding, Low-Information Voters Pick Romney?
As his standing in the polls improves, Mitt Romney is piling up public endorsements from a new cohort of voters: the celebrity-train-wreck set.
The latest celebrity to climb aboard the Romney bandwagon is actress and Page Six piñata Lindsay Lohan. “I just think employment is really important right now,” Lohan said. “So, as of now, Mitt Romney.” She joins Clueless actress Stacey Dash, wrestler Hulk Hogan and adult-film star Jenna Jameson on the Celebs for Romney booster squad. How much does this matter? Narrowly speaking, not at all. None of these people live in competitive states, it’s unlikely their opinions will sway a soul, and wealthier people tend to vote Republican anyway based on their economic self-interest. (If you don’t buy those charts, take it from Jameson: “When you’re rich, you want a Republican in office.”)
But the celebrity migration to the Romney camp, as Walter Hickey of Business Insider noted, may be a symptom of a potentially serious problem for Barack Obama: an indication that so-called low-information voters, many of whom supported Obama in 2008, will abandon the President’s re-election bid. The conviction that undecided voters will break late against the incumbent has always been a pillar of the Romney campaign’s strategy.