AMES, Iowa – Lagging behind some of her still-active porn star peers by a couple months, former top-shelf adult performer Jenna Jameson finally weighed in on the 2016 race for the White House. In tweeting her support for Marco Rubio, Jameson referred to the junior Republican Senator from Florida as “the clear choice.”
“This endorsement will give a major boost to the Rubio campaign, perhaps as he needs it most, considering what has been reported about his campaign being behind schedule in terms of fundraising,” said Dennis Lawrence, a professor of political science at the ATM Learning Institute and senior political analyst for MSNBCBSBCSPAN-2. “It’s a truism of Republican politics that when money is tight, what you need is the backing of people who are famously loose.”
The endorsement marks a continued rightward shift for Jameson, who expressed her support for Hillary Clinton in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
While many pundits have pointed toward Jameson’s engagement to Israeli Lior Bitton and ongoing conversion to Judaism as the primary motivation behind her staunch support of Israel and backing of like-minded American candidates, Jameson offered a different explanation for her shift to the right in 2012.
“I’m very looking forward to a Republican being back in office,” Jameson said at the time. “When you’re rich, you want a Republican in office.”
Of course, about a year after offering this explanation, it appeared Jameson might not be all that rich, after all.
Could Jameson’s history in the porn industry, inconsistent past in terms of political endorsements and questionable status as a person of wealth cause her endorsement to backfire for Rubio? Lawrence doesn’t think so.
“The kind of people who find Jenna persuasive and follow her political lead aren’t going to worry too much about things like credibility, consistency or rational sense,” Lawrence said. “They might be a bit puzzled as to why she didn’t endorse Trump, because it would seem like a train wreck made in tabloid heaven, but they aren’t going to hold things like her past relationship with a wrestler with a comically oversize head impact their opinion of Marco Rubio.”
Some of Rubio’s other supporters aren’t so pleased to hear Jameson’s endorsement, however, expressing concern it could undermine Rubio’s credentials as the right choice for socially conservative Republicans.
“I was already worried his lead-footed wife might be under the influence not of the devil which comes in a bottle, but the real devil, the one who lives in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks,” said Jo Anne Smithers, who listened to several candidates speak at the recent Values Voter Summit. “Then I read his favorite hip hop artists include those awful ‘N-Words with Amplitude’ and the son of a Black Panther, and now this!”
“What’s next?” Smithers asked. “Are we going to find out Rubio is one of those wishy-washy ‘conservatives in name only’ who thinks the question of gay marriage should be left to the states?”
Other Rubio supporters are more enthusiastic about Jameson publicly joining their ranks, and even hope her endorsement might help the candidate in some states that have “gone blue” in past elections.
“If anything can put Rubio over the top in California, it might be a strong endorsement from one of the state’s most celebrated and respected residents,” said Matt Finnish, who is part of the Rubio campaign’s grassroots volunteer effort in the state. “Mr. Rubio loves to talk about the importance of family and the unbreakable bonds of love that a solid family provides, and there’s no better example of this principle than the steadfast and trusting relationship between Jenna and Tito, the greatest California role-model pairing and examples of family unity since the Schwarzeneggers, and a real ‘fighting family’ in every sense of the term.”
Informed that Jameson’s relationship with mixed martial arts fighter and ludicrously large-headed person Tito Ortiz came to something of a fiery and litigious end well over two years ago and the Schwarzeneggers also have divorced, Finnish said he “simply misspoke.”
“First, I meant to say ‘Bitton’ and it came out ‘Tito.’ It’s as simple as that,” Finnish said, further insisting Lior Bitton went 7-3 with two knockouts during a previously unreported MMA career. “Second, with the Schwarzeneggers, clearly it was all the maid’s fault. The strongest family bonds have a tough time overcoming the irresistible power of even the average Austrian man’s maid-fetish — and obviously the former Governor is no average Austrian.”
Regardless of Jameson’s endorsement, Lawrence said the Rubio campaign faces “major obstacles” in the months ahead, not the least of which is the specter of other Republicans receiving future endorsements from porn stars who are more “erotically relevant” than Jameson.
“It has been a long time since Jenna had a porn hit, so she’s not really on the radar as much as she once was,” Lawrence said. “Plus, I’m not sure if you tried to watch any of those live cam shows Jenna put on for a while before getting her hooks into this Israeli guy, but let’s just say they weren’t exactly wall-to-wall strokefests.
“Honestly, it was a bit like watching Eddie Murphy masturbate in character as one of the Klumps,” Lawrence added of Jameson’s cam shows, “only in this case, it would be Eddie wearing a body suit that makes him look like a meth-addicted Caucasian ectomorph instead of an obese but jovial African-American.”
Image: Jenna Jameson, © Glenn Francis; Marco Rubio official portrait
