Actress Eva Longoria said her speech to the Democratic convention would be very different from Clint Eastwood’s speech to Republicans.
Longoria told NBC’s “Today” there would be no empty chairs.
Eastwood gave a bizarre and rambling address last week at the Republican convention, talking to an empty chair as he pretended to converse with President Barack Obama.
Longoria says she has “been in the trenches” campaigning for Obama. The “Desperate Housewives” star is a co-chair for Obama’s re-election bid.
Speaking with the fiery clarity she brings to her role as a cutthroat Washington crisis-management fixer on ABC’s “Scandal,” Washington worked a “we the people” theme: “We’ve expanded the meaning of that phrase to include more and more of us. That’s what it means to move forward.” And she chastened anyone who is “too busy” to get involved. “You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you. . . .The other side wants to take our voices away and render us invisible. But we are not invisible.”
A stream of Hollywood actors and red-carpet luminaries stepped up as celebvocates for Obama on the convention stage Thursday night. James Taylor and Mary J. Blige entertained the convention hall with song. Kerry Washington and Scarlett Johansson told their own stories of growing up with limited means.
Johansson described herself as “a representative of the many millions who depend on nonprofit programs to help them survive.” Sporting a gray blazer over a tight flag-themed T-shirt, she urged young people to “commit” to the political process, describing her thrill as a young girl when her mother would take her into the voting booth. She described her pride at “finally” getting to vote during the last election - but maybe she meant the one before that: At 27, the star was eligible to vote in the 2004 cycle as well.
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