Hollywood stays behind scenes in race

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By Sonny Bunch

'08 ISSUES:

The entertainment industry is usually a lightning rod when presidential contests roll around.

Who can forget Bill Clinton's "Sister Souljah" moment in 1992? Or "Saturday Night Live" while skewering Al Gore in the 2000 presidential debates? Or Michael Moore's anti-George W. Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" in 2004?

Unlike those contests, however, the impact of the entertainment industry and Hollywood seems to have been minimal thus far in 2008. Other than the occasional fundraiser, celebrities are keeping their distance from Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama and the election in general, afraid of again tilting the election in the Republican Party's favor. There hasn't even been an entertainment-related controversy to fire up either party's base.

Mr. Obama has nimbly eluded efforts to tie him to an entertainment industry out of step with Middle America's values. "I do think as president you can use the bully pulpit to speak out against some of the coarsening aspects of our culture," he told the Christian Broadcast Network's David Brody. "I am not someone who believes in censorship, but I think there's nothing wrong with speaking out against things that are teaching our kids the wrong lessons."

Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, has close ties to Sen. Joe Lieberman, a leading crusader against violence in the media. Neither Mr. McCain nor Mr. Obama has made regulating the entertainment industry a focal point of his campaign, and other than a reference to protecting children from Internet pornography by Mr. McCain, neither's Web site touches on the entertainment industry.

Celebrities have confined themselves to nonpartisan get-out-the vote efforts; the Creative Coalition released a video last week starring Anne Hathaway, Samuel L. Jackson and other A-listers reminding voters to hit polling places on Nov. 4.

"Certainly in this election cycle more than ever, getting out the vote no matter what is important," said Creative Coalition Executive Director Robin Bronk. "We all want to do our part to encourage voting."

As the election draws to a close, the only explicitly political films to get a major push are Bill Maher's anti-religion documentary "Religulous," Oliver Stone's biopic on President Bush, "W.," and David Zucker's "An American Carol."

Content to spend most of its running time making fun of unsophisticated rubes, Mr. Maher's film closes with a fiery polemic exhorting agnostics like himself to vote the religious out of office.