Score One For McCain!

"Like, McCain totally has foreign policy skills"

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to battle for the Democratic nomination, John McCain is busy locking up key endorsements. This week, McCain secured the much-sought-after endorsement of quasi-celebrity Heidi Montag. Montag, a "star" of MTV's scripted reality series The Hills, was quoted in Us Weekly magazine, espousing her preference for the aging politician. "I'm a Republican and McCain has a lot of experience," she stated.

You may be asking yourself, "Who the %@*$ is Heidi Montag?" True, scripted reality television may be a harbinger of the Apocalypse. Sure, a spoiled, Paris Hilton wannabe may not possess any real political clout. But let's not diminish the importance of this endorsement.

First, the Montag endorsement has shown a real breadth of support for McCain's candidacy. Now, he's got the senior vote and the youth vote. He's got the support of those that decry the political influence of the "Hollywood Elite," and, well, a Hollywood elitist. And while some viewers will naively dismiss scripted reality shows like The Hills and it's predecessor Laguna Beach as contrived, disingenuous garbage, centered around spoiled rich assholes you couldn't care less about, that couldn't be further from the truth. Montag is really a crossover sensation, and The Hills can potentially appeal to both reality TV and dramatic TV viewers. That's a very large demographic group, and with Montag is his corner, McCain has it all but locked up.

But in all seriousness, are we really that surprised that this flavor of the week, soon-to-be coke fiend is a Republican? Now if a young Hollywood star like Ellen Page were a Republican, that would be absolutely shocking. But Heidi Montag, not so much. She's rich, she's from Orange County, and she dates this douchebag:

Enough Said.

Now I'll admit that I don't really see Montag's announcement as a valuable "endorsement," but I'm going to have some fun with this anyway. Montag, 21, strikes me as someone who is a Republican because her parents are Republicans. A telltale sign that one is not particularly politically aware is when they are under 30 and vote for a Republican. When I was 18, I voted for Bob Dole, for Christ's sake. Why? Because my parents were Republicans and I didn't know any better. The fact that her basis for the endorsement was because "I'm a Republican," indicates the shallow depth of analysis Heidi Montag has to offer this election cycle.

While McCain will certainly take any vote he can get from anyone under the age of 60, I'm not so sure the Montag endorsement is all that great for McCain. First, it is an endorsement from someone who doesn't have the slightest credentials with which to make an endorsement. Something tells me Montag's not super excited about staying in Iraq for the next 100 years or privatizing social security. Secondly, if there's one thing typical Americans can do without, it is rich, spoiled, overexposed, talentless trust fund socialites. If I was an undecided voter and Heidi Montag (or Nicole Richie, Kim Kardashian or whomever), preferred one candidate, I'd vote for the other guy. Finally, it's not like this is an endorsement that will resonate with any key voting bloc. Ironically, most people interested in who Heidi Montag would vote for are too busy paying attention to people like Heidi Montag to even vote in the first place.