George Clooney can't decide what role he'd like to play.
This has nothing to do with his flourishing movie career and everything to do with the 2008 presidential campaign, where the involvement of even a widely admired star can be the subject of a serious dilemma.
On the one hand, the actor said in an interview, he would love to throw himself into campaigning for his friend, Sen. Barack Obama, a politician he compares to President Kennedy.
But Clooney is too shrewd a political observer to discount the negative effect celebrity can have on a campaign, especially in a red state. (Look what happened last year when industry favorite Rep. Harold Ford Jr. ran for the Senate in 2006. The Tennessee Democrat's foes called him "Fancy Ford" and portrayed him as a habitue of Hollywood's decadent soirees. It might have been what cost him the election in a close race.)
At the moment Clooney is playing it close to the vest, waiting to see if he can play a part without become a distracting sideshow. His quandary is a measure of Hollywood's growing political sophistication; celebs are beginning to understand that their support can be a double-edged sword.
Clooney points to a deeply personal example of Hollywood backlash: His father, former television anchorman and game show host Nick Clooney, lost his congressional race in Kentucky in 2004 after his opponent blasted him for having "Hollywood values."
"It became an issue of Hollywood versus the heartland," said Clooney, who opted not to publicly campaign for his father. "I believed I could only do him more harm."
So when Obama, an Illinois Democrat, told Clooney last year that he was thinking about running for president, the actor was excited but cautious. "I told him I would do anything for him, including staying completely away from him," said Clooney, speaking recently on his cellphone from the South Carolina set of his latest movie, "Leatherheads."
Obama, however, welcomed Clooney's involvement and support. They got to know each other a year ago while attending a rally to raise awareness about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and have stayed in touch. When asked about Clooney at a recent event, Obama broke into a smile, gestured expressively and said simply: "He's a good friend."
