Celebrity Swing Voters Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lindsay Lohan

Lindsay Lohan endorsed Obama on MySpace in 2008. Although she announced in October 2012 her support for presidential challenger Mitt Romney, after the final presidential debate at Lynn University on October 22, Lohan tweeted support for Obama again.

Lohan also starred in 'Mean Girls' (2004), recorded an album called 'Speak' (2004), and started her own clothing line.

Answer: Don King

Don King, who promoted Muhammad Ali's "Rumble in the Jungle" and "Thrilla in Manilla" in the 1970s, has long been a member of the National Black Republican Association. He supported George W. Bush's re-election in 2004, and made headlines attending the 2004 Republican convention. He became a staunch Obama supporter, however, in the 2008 and 2012 elections.

King sees his swing as a good thing. In an article published 6 November 2012 on Examiner.com, King called himself "versatile and flexible, a Republicrat at heart." He further said, of leaving the Republicans: "JFK said it, and it's true; sometimes party loyalty comes at too high a price. This is that time. What was done in stereotyping the black people continues to be done to women."

Answer: Stacey Dash

Stacey Dash played Dionne Davenport, best friend of Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) in 'Clueless' (1995), a film loosely based on the novel 'Emma' (1815) by Jane Austen. After tweeting her support for Romney, Dash, who is African-American, received in response not merely criticism but threats, insults, racial remarks, and suggestions that she commit suicide. On a CNN interview, she stated that she switched allegiances "because of the state of the country".

Answer: Mike Love

Michael Edward Love (b. 1941), a founding member of the Beach Boys, supported Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Natural Law Party in the 1992 election. In the 'L.A. Times', Love explained: "We like George Bush as a person and have supported him in the past....but on the environment, we have to part." But all was forgiven when Love played at a fund-raiser for Republican candidate John McCain in 2008. Unfortunately, this was the one where McCain sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb... bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann" -- a parody written by Vince Vance and the Valiants in 1980. It is unclear what happened to deter Love from his environmentalism of the 1990s.

Both Dennis (1944-1983) and Carl Wilson (1946-1996), two other founding members of the Beach Boys, had passed on before McCain's candidacy. David Lee Roth covered "California Girls" but was never a member of the band.

Answer: Frank Sinatra

Ol' Blue-Eyes, Frank Sinatra, was very much a Democrat in his youth. He donated $5000 to Franklin Roosevelt's campaign in 1944, and he endorsed Truman in 1948. Sinatra (along with the rest of the Rat Pack) ardently campaigned for Kennedy in 1960, and he also supported Hubert Humphrey in 1968 -- both of whom ran against Republican Richard Nixon for the U.S. presidency. (Nonetheless, Nixon won the 1968 election.) Although his daughter, Tina, endorsed Democratic George McGovern in 1972, Sinatra decided to support Nixon's re-election, despite more than a decade of opposing him, because, as he is quoted on Sinatra.com, "the older you get, the more conservative get".

For more information about Sinatra's politics, read Martin Smith's book "When Ol' Blue Eyes Was a Red" (2005) and Steve Pond's archived Sinatra.com article "Frank Sinatra and Politics" (4 July 1991).

Answer: False

It was the other way around. According to 'Us Weekly', Heidi Montag intended to vote for McCain, but after the election 'New York' magazine reported she was sighted wearing a "Barack'n N Baroll'n" T-shirt, implying support for the new President.

Montag may change her mind as often as she changes her face. In 2010, according to 'People', she underwent ten plastic surgery operations in a single day!

Answer: Al Jolson

Al Jolson starred in the 'The Jazz Singer' (1927), often called the first feature-length talkie, although technically it was a hybrid film as it had both sound and silent segments. One of his most famous performances was donning blackface (again) to sing "Swanee" by Caesar and Gerswhin -- "Swanee, how I love you, how I love you".

Jolson wrote a song for Harding's presidential campaign, "Harding, You're the Man for Us", and then he wrote a campaign song for Calvin Coolidge, Harding's successor, called "Keep Cool with Coolidge". Kevin Kusinitz writes in his blog for the 'The Weekly Standard' that even a staunch Republican could not "resist the charm of Franklin D. Roosevelt", but while Jolson campaigned for him he never wrote him a song. Starting in 1936, however, Jolson championed the Republican challenger Alf Landon, and he never publicly supported Roosevelt again.

Answer: James Cagney

James Francis Cagney -- who never said "You dirty rat!" -- portrayed composer-playwright-dancer-actor George M. Cohan in the movie 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' (1942), in which he performed original choreography, sang the title song and "Give My Regards to Broadway", and won an Oscar for it!

Cagney was somewhat liberal in the 1930s and '40s. In his 1976 autobiography, Cagney wrote that he supported labor leader Thomas Mooney. Cagney also donated money to the Spanish Republican (anti-fascist) cause during the Spanish Civil War and to striking cotton workers in the San Joaquin Valley, according to biographer Patrick McGilligan. He raised money for War Bonds during World War II and for Franklin Roosevelt's campaigns.

After World War II, his politics changed. Cagney wrote that he disliked Harry Truman intensely and threw his support to challenger Thomas Dewey. Meanwhile, he had befriended Ronald Reagan and by 1980 was a staunch Republican. In fact, as he aged, Cagney became increasingly conservative, an "arch-conservative" as he called himself, in part as "a totally natural reaction once I began to see undisciplined elements in our country stimulating a breakdown of our system... Those functionless creatures, the hippies ... just didn't appear out of a vacuum."

Answer: Elvis Presley

Elvis told a reporter in 1956: "I'm strictly for Stevenson. I don't dig the intellectual bit, but I'm telling you, man, he knows the most." Adlai E. Stevenson II, a New-Deal Democrat and an exceptionally eloquent orator, lost the presidential race to war-hero General Dwight D. Eisenhower, especially in Southern states.

In 1970, the King visited President Nixon, presented him with a handgun, and said, "I'm on your side", and he asked the President to make him a "Federal Agent-at-Large" in order to fight the war on drugs. And lo, Nixon made him a "Federal Agent-at-Large" of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (the predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Agency). Elvis also asked J. Edgar Hoover if he could join the FBI, but Hoover was less amenable.

After Watergate, Elvis befriended the Democratic governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, who was elected President in 1976, and the two spoke many times by phone before the King's death. Read 'Elvis Day By Day' (1999) by Peter Guarlinck and Ernst Jorgensen for more information about that relationship.

Answer: Elizabeth Taylor

Taylor helped her husband John Warner get elected to the Senate in 1978, where he sat for 30 years. "It may have been the prospect of Liz as a fund raiser that earned Warner his spot in the race" speculated 'People' magazine at the time.

Becoming an AIDS/HIV activist shortly after the death of her friend Rock Hudson probably helped change her politics. She started lobbying Congress in 1986 and later helped found the Americans Foundation for AIDS Research, for which she raised more than $100 million. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Taylor initially supported Hilary Clinton, according to CNN's Laura Kalimont. When Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination, she endorsed him, and continued to be loyal to him until her death in 2011.

(For more information about Talyor's extensive 1978 campaign work, read "Liz Stumps for John" by Garry Clifford, 'People', 23 October 1978.)