Fred Thompson, Jesse Ventura and 11 others who went from the small screen to the podium

Did you know that before he hosted his eponymous chair-throwing, fist-flying talk show, Jerry Springer was the mayor of Cincinnati?

Going from politician to TV star may be an unusual path, but the opposite route is actually quite common.

Here are 13 stars who made -- or tried to make -- the leap from primetime to politics.

Ben Jones, who played mechanic Cooter on the TV series Dukes of Hazzard has come out against the new film adaptation in a letter on his Web site. I have yet to see the movie --and when I say "yet to see the movie" I mean "I'm probably not going to see the movie"-- but I assume that since the fellas of Broken Lizard wrote the screenplay the film is not without its ribald moments. I think it's admirable that Jones feels such a kinship with the show (heck, the guy runs two Dukes of Hazzard museums) but straight adaptations of a show rarely work with today's audiences.