Getty ImagesPop & Politics contributor Judy Kurtz is the "In the Know" columnist for The Hill
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Every presidential race has them, but 2016 already appears to be featuring even more unusual celebrity-politico pairings than ever before.
From the camouflage-sporting, backwoods-favoring Willie Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame rooting on NYC real estate mogul Donald Trump, to Snoop Dogg giving high praise to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, to rapper Killer Mike noshing with Bernie Sanders at an Atlanta diner, the race for the White House has resulted in some strange bedfellows.
"I think any endorsement is basically attention for any candidate," says entertainment reporter Kim Serafin, who served as deputy press secretary for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "To get the celebrity tweeting about it, to get recognition on social media—that's really what a lot of these endorsements are about by celebrities."
Snoop Dogg garnered headlines when he lauded Clinton in an interview with Bravo's Andy Cohen back in May. "Just to have a woman speaking from a global perspective as far as representing America, I'd love to see that," the ''Gin & Juice'' rapper said.
He added, "So I'll be voting Ms. Clinton.''
He's not the only musical ally of the former secretary of state. Katy Perry performed at an Iowa rally for Clinton and even took over the White House hopeful's Instagram account. Support from the ''Firework'' singer can bring "a whole new audience of people who probably would not have been watching the Sunday shows, or watching political coverage on CNN or Fox News or MSNBC. But they saw it on E! or some other entertainment outlet,'' says Serafin.
"So in a way, it gets the candidates attention that they maybe would not have otherwise gotten."
But Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, says surprising endorsements won't necessarily sway voters.
''I think the general rule of thumb is that when a celebrity endorses a candidate, it's more likely to make someone change their mind about the celebrity, than it is about the candidate," he says.
"If you've all your life been a Republican or a Democrat, and your parents have been Republicans or Democrats, and an actor comes out and supports the other party, I think it's less likely that you're going to say, 'I really loved Sean Penn in that movie and he just supported the opposing party, and therefore I'm going to become a Democrat.'
"You're more likely going to say, 'I used to like Sean Penn in that movie but now I think he's an idiot because he supports someone else.'"
There are times, however, when an unexpected endorsement could potentially backfire for the politician and not the celeb. Case in point: When former adult film star Jenna Jameson exposed her political side in the form of Twitter support for GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio.
"@marcorubio is the clear choice!!!!" the erstwhile "Queen of Porn" tweeted in October about the conservative Florida senator.
While Thompson says Jameson's thumbs-up won't necessarily hurt Rubio's candidacy, he acknowledges that "certainly there are situations where you could get endorsements that you didn't want. None of these candidates want Bill Cosby to come out and say, 'I think this person should be president."
Other celebrities not known for their political leanings have been seemingly coming out of the blue to comment on some of the 2016 field as well.
Vince Vaughn said at a Young Americans for Liberty convention in California in April that Republican Sen. Rand Paul was the "candidate that is currently running that I am most sort of aligned with in sort of his thoughts and philosophies," while Kid Rock told The New York Times Magazine in February that he was "very interested" in what high-polling GOP candidate Ben Carson had to say. Rapper Ja Rule said that as a Democrat he'll be voting for Clinton, but considered Republican Jeb Bush "a good candidate as well."
Thompson says the oddball celebrity cheerleaders can be a coup for certain kinds of candidates. Sanders' association with a variety of entertainment figures, for instance, has acquired him a certain cool factor.
"We all know he talks like the guy who tells you to get off his lawn," Thompson says with a laugh about the Vermont senator. "So when those younger or hipper, or whatever, [celebrities] endorse him… They continue to kind of give this patina of hipness."
And, Serafin points out, the celebs can give a big boost to fundraising efforts by appearing at rallies and other campaign-related events.
For Serafin, the scenario would involve the star who famously addressed an empty chair onstage at the 2012 Republican National Convention: "The real surprise is if Clint Eastwood turned around and supported Hillary Clinton."
And Thompson says the candidates don't have to worry too much about appearing disingenuous if they rub elbows with unexpected Hollywood types.
"While Hillary may or may not be consuming the career output of either Snoop Dogg or Katy Perry," the professor says, "or while Hillary may have very little in common or knowledge of these people, or may not, I don't think that's necessarily a problem of why someone has endorsed you."
"I guess in the end, a lot of these endorsements at a rational level are kind of meaningless," suggests Thompson. "Just because you might really love Game of Thrones, what the actor that plays Jon Snow thinks about candidates should not really matter to your civic decision.
"You can love the actor, but that's not really I think where one should be deriving the set of criteria upon which one makes an important decision of exercising your franchise to vote."
Trust us, who Kit Harington would vote for is the last thing we want to know from the actor who plays Jon Snow