The idea of a surprise celebrity speaker blew up last week at the Republican National Convention.
Legendary actor/director Clint Eastwood spent 12 rambling minutes lecturing an invisible Barack Obama, who was represented by an empty chair. It was one of the most embarrassing moments in American political convention history. But more importantly, it killed a rare opportunity for Mitt Romney to get his message out to the American people.
Bit it's still not necessarily a bad idea to invite a surprise celebrity guest to speak at a political convention. If you could find a celebrity who would be willing to stay on script and rehearse, it could expand the audience to an otherwise predictable political event and actually enhance the nominee's image.
Now, some Democrats are leading an effort to bring in legendary actress Betty White, who endorsed Obama in May and visited him at the White House in June, to speak at this week's Democratic National Convention.
A petition at the website change.org says that Eastwood "gave a bad name to older Americans everywhere with his absurd and awkward-to-watch introduction of Governor Romney."
"Governor Romney can have Clint Eastwood and his improvisational skills because President Obama has the one and only Betty White!" the petition continued.
There's also a campaign to recruit White on Facebook. The page Bring Betty White to the DNC has more than 34,000 likes so far.
White, 90, told The Associated Press in May that she normally stays away from politics because she doesn't want to alienate fans, but this year she wants to see Obama re-elected.
If Betty's not available, who else could step into this role? Let us know your idea and take our poll!!: