Scarlett Johansson sprinkles a little stardust at Carleton

If you want to draw people to a get-out-the-vote rally, it helps to have Scarlett Johansson as your headliner.

Johansson, the star of Lost in Translation and The Prestige, went to Carleton College in Northfield to help drum up support for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a rally that had Carleton administrators both excited and a bit concerned about being overwhelmed.

“We’re worried that all of Northfield High School is going to show up,” joked Chris Rasinen, assistant director of campus activities.

All of the high school may not have shown up, but hundreds of high school and college students turned out to see the star, who urged them to caucus tonight.

“This is a really incredible time to be young, a really incredible time to be eligible to vote,” Johansson said. “I don’t want to be like a corny celebrity, but I will use every ounce of stardust I have to sell that to you.”

Johansson said she was in Minnesota because the state has had a traditionally high turnout of young voters, and that she’d come to Carleton for “the opportunity to talk to you as my peers.”

She said she’d become politically active after the start of the Iraq war, saying she felt like opposition to the war was “falling on deaf ears.”

“That’s not how democracy is supposed to work,” she said, praising Obama for his opposition to the war.

“This is a senator who opposed the war from the very beginning,” she said.

Asked by one student why she supported Obama instead of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who is the first major female candidate for the presidency, Johansson said, “I don’t want to say nasty things about Hillary Clinton. I think she has a lot of good intentions.” Johansson added, “We have an African-American man and a woman in this race, and it’s amazing that this is happening now.”

But Johansson said that Obama’s wife, Michelle, was a reason she supported the candidate.

“When we elect Barack Obama to the White House, we will have an amazing woman in the White House, Michelle Obama,” said Johansson.

Johansson also took aim at Clinton’s claims of being the more experienced candidate in the race.

“I like the fact that [Obama] has a clean slate,” Johansson said. “Just because you’ve had experience in the past, that doesn’t mean it was good.”

Johansson praised Obama, saying she’d been “star-struck” the first time she’d met him.

“I said, ‘Hi, senator, I love your wife, it’s so nice to meet you,’” she groaned, saying she’d felt “dorky” for the statement.

There were a few moments of levity at the rally. At one point, Johansson was distracted by a large banner that touted “Vagina Night” at The Cave, the campus bar. And one student asked Johansson what Bill Murray had whispered to her at the end of Lost in Translation.

“Vote for Obama,” Johansson stage-whispered.

While Johansson was at the event specifically to support Obama, she urged students to caucus regardless of their candidate preference.

“Please, please, the whole point of this is to go out and caucus,” Johansson said. “Go. Do it. Make a change.”