Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Bad News For Obama/Clinton

Sorry about that last post - I was a bit angry.

Anyway, I wanted to link to this fun little bit about Mellencamp asking John McCain to quit using his songs at campaign rallies. Mellencamp, an Edwards supporter and ardent Democrat, doesn't want anyone to think he supports Johnny Mac.

The bad news is this - every time in recent memory an artist complained about a presidential candidate's music selection, the candidate went on to win. In 1984, Ronald Reagan (somewhat quixotically) wanted to use Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A" and was shot down by the Boss - he went on to win. In 2004, George W. wanted to use the Foo Fighters' "Times Like These" and Dave Groel said no.

You have to feel for the Republicans, though. If they want to rock, they're pretty much left with Skynyrd and Ted Nugent. (I think the Ramones were Republicans, but "I Wanna Be Sedated" is not the message you want to be sending to the voters.)

1 comment:

Mike said...

Not to be nitpicky, but it's "Dave Grohl".

That's a funny point about candidates winning when musicians don't allow their songs to be used - I never thought of it before.

Apologies for the crudity, but it would be really funny if Hillary won the Democrat nomination and McCain subsequently adopted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" as his campaign theme song.

The good news for Obama/Clinton is that they didn't vote for the previous post's bullshit - though I would have preferred a "nay", at least they didn't automatically end up on my shit list.