How To: Endorse a candidate

Now that the Olympics are over, it is time to forget about such frivolity and stop pretending you care about shot put. It is time to turn your attention to more important matters, like the election in November you are not going to vote in.

Yes, it is time to endorse a presidential candidate. Everyone is doing it, including rapper Hillary Clinton (endorsed Sen. Barack Obama) and Sen. Daddy Yankee (endorsed Sen. John McCain). Maybe it is your turn to publicly throw your support behind one candidate or the other. That is why The Guys explain to you how to endorse a candidate.

1) Run it by the campaign.
Believe it or not, sometimes campaigns do not really want your support. This is what Ludacris found out earlier this summer, when one of his rap songs endorsed Obama and “dissed” political rivals, including Clinton. Why did this happen? Plain and simple: Barack Obama doesn’t like black people.

Still, this is a good example of getting the campaigns OK before you go out and yell out your love for your man. Also, it is important to make sure a campaign does not use your endorsement without actually giving it. This happened in the 1984 election, when Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign used Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” Springsteen found out about it and made the Reagan campaign stop using it.

2) Be famous.
Are you famous? If so, this is good. Most political campaigns do not care if they are endorsed by John Q. Fanboy or Emma the Cat Lady. So you have to make sure you are a celebrity of some sort. This does not mean a celebrity in your own mind, this means in the minds of others.

More importantly, make sure you are famous now. Getting the endorsement of Michael Phelps is far more desirable than getting the endorsement of Mark Spitz. This is called the Gary Coleman rule. Getting an endorsement from 25 years ago, when he was famous, rich and had a hit television show, is way cooler than getting the endorsement of today’s broke, forgotten Gary Coleman, who currently works full-time as the butt of most jokes.

3) Make your announcement in as showy a way as possible.
Endorsements are like anal sphincters, everyone has one, but people only care if someone famous uses it. To ensure that people care more about your endorsement than other celebrities’, you need to entertain the masses. Hold a press conference, write a hit song, paint a masterpiece. Use your talents in the endorsement and you are sure to get some air time on the nightly news.

You are not talented? You are just one of those people who is famous for no reason (we’re looking at you, Paris Hilton, Tila Tequila and Shia LaBeouf). Then you need to be outrageous. Here is how you do it: hold a press conference and descend from the ceiling to Asia’s “Final Countdown.” The crowd will be rocking out in awe as you are lowered to the podium. This is when you put on your huge foam sombrero with your candidate’s name on it. Also, it would not hurt to turn on the fans that blow money toward the crowd. Once everyone has settled down, they will really, really care about what you think, because you are a celebrity, and darn it, that means you are better than them.