Good Question

Hmm?

It's not a surprise to anyone as Thompson has been hinting about this for months, but I have to ask this: Why is it that Republicans love to smear Democrats as ruled by the "Hollywood left" and yet they fall over themselves in the most embarassing way for actors-turned-politicians?

Republicans positively wet themselves whenever someone from Hollywood also happens to be right-wing. It may be that the very mystique of Hollywood that the allegedly disdain is the thing they most want: a reassuring illusion to tell them that everything is going to be just fine.

Democrats have their "knight on a white horse" problem, but it usually tends to be based on the desire that serious policy people become popular (e.g., Al Gore). With Republicans, the knight they are looking for inevitably has some kind of celebrity sheen to them.