Celebrities jump on the stump

With the presidential election just a few weeks away, you're probably still trying to make up your mind about what to do come November.

Thankfully, we have movie stars and musicians to help little people like you and me make the right decision.

Whom to vote for? Alice Cooper's candidate or Bruce Springsteen's? The guy ZZ Top is endorsing or the guy Kid Rock and Ron Silver are pushing? The guy that Angie Harmon and Bo Derek are promoting or the man Bon Jovi and Whoopi Goldberg are backing?

Welcome to the Celebrity Sweepstakes Presidential Race. The "stars" have come out to use their fame and riches to get you to vote their way. Are we really that shallow? No. It would take much more than Barbra Streisand to persuade a man to vote for Kerry.

It would take Jennifer Aniston.

If Jenny — that's what I call her — told a man to vote for a cocker spaniel, there's a good chance he would do it.

Celebrities are coming out of the woodwork — not to mention their limos and mansions — to sway the public.

Ladies and gentlemen, in Bush's corner, we give you Toby Keith, Lee Greenwood, the Gatlin Brothers, Martina McBride, Faith Hill, Ricky Skaggs, Amy Grant, George Strait; the has-been rocker set of Alice Cooper, Lynard Skynard, ZZ Top and Ted Nugent; actors Ron Silver, Angie Harmon, Stephen Baldwin and Bo Derek; Wayne Newton the singer and Kid Rock (and whatever it is that he does).

In Kerry's corner, let's give a big liberal welcome to Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, John Cusack, Patti LaBelle, Carole King, Willie Nelson, Barbra Streisand, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt, Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Rob Reiner and Whoopi Goldberg (Ozzy Osbourne wanted to join the fray, but he thinks the election is between LBJ and Nixon).

All of the above have either spoken out for their man or against the other man, and/or performed at party conventions and functions.

Affleck has made numerous appearances for Kerry, doing interviews with Larry King and on the "Today Show" and "The O'Reilly Factor." He schmoozes delegates, and he once interviewed Sen. Edward Kennedy for ABC.

Springsteen has launched a "Vote for Change" 34-city concert tour to help defeat Bush, with help from the Dixie Chicks, Matthews, Raitt and Pearl Jam.

Dave Marsh, who is identified as a rock historian and Springsteen's biographer, explained it all this way: "Popular entertainers . . . are some of the few people visible enough in society and yet connected enough to the way working people really live to express some of those issues and values," he says.