Over recent months, I developed a little habit of randomly googling famous people and seeing whether or not they endorsed Obama... primarily people who, for various reasons, I've been a fan of.

So I looked up Mellencamp and of course he had  endorsed Barack Obama (and hey, looks like he delivered Indiana for him too!). And so on for all the other singers, writers, etc who've been parts of my life over the years. David E. Kelley, probably my personal Greatest Television Writer Ever, seems to have contributed $2300 to Obama back in December 2007. Good for David, who created Picket Fences, The Practice, Boston Legal, and many more great shows.

Anyway, I regret that I didn't think to look up John Updike until today, even though I've spent more time on Updike than any other writer - some years ago now, I did a thesis for my first degree that was all about the Rabbit novels.

I thought his comments were worthy of reproducing:

 'I'm for Obama, 100 per cent,' said Updike. He has a personal reason for his enthusiasm: his memoir Self-Consciousness is dedicated to his two half-African grandsons and contains a letter to the boys, assuring them that all Americans are 'of mixed blood'. 'Things have moved on since I wrote that. I now have three grandchildren who are Obama's colour: my daughter married a Ghanaian, and my son has a Kenyan wife. The colour brown has come around, as the song says!

'I really think Obama would regenerate this worn-out country. I'm such a believer that I probably won't be able to watch the debate tonight. I get so upset when I think about the alternative. McCain is blameable for choosing Palin as his running mate. She's a bird-brain, she annoys me terribly. McCain himself is worse. You know the way he grits his teeth? Mine grit too as I watch him.' Novelists, like actors, create character by an act of physical identification, which even extends to someone they despise. Opposite me on a couch, Updike's teeth froze, his arms shortened and stiffened, and his sparkling eyes turned wild. The magus momentarily became the grizzled, barking, Republican nominee.

I told Updike that both Obama and McCain had nominated him as one of their favourite writers. 'They did? I'd have thought Barack would be reading Hegel, not fiction! And I can't imagine McCain reading anything. He's so irascible, readers have to be patient.'

From The Guardian.