Silly Republicans: Don’t you know heartland rock is for Democrats?

We seem to go through this every election cycle: Another GOP contender tries to trade his corporate-shill reality for some Reagan-Democrat populist cred, appropriates a bouncy, at-least-vaguely-patriotic anthem for his stump-speech recessional — and then gets publicly dressed down by an enraged guitar slinger.

This past week, John McCain was forced to bow in the face of a mad, mad Mellencamp when he tried to appropriate the Hoosier’s Chevy anthem “Our Country” for his suddenly front-running campaign. Never mind that John Edwards had been using “Our Country” for a year, with Mellencamp’s endorsement, before Edwards bowed out of the race. (Hurry, Johnny Mac! Romney’s been out of the race for a week already. How quickly can you strip the chassis of some campaign element that didn’t work so well for him, like…lacquered hair? “Gosh, I love America”? Mormonism?)

You’d think these guys would have learned, at least, to ask permission first — or maybe just read the lyrics. Most famously, Ronald Reagan’s handlers decided that “Born in the USA” would make a great campaign theme, never mind all that stuff about how you “end up like a dog that’s been beat too much/’Til you spend half your life just coverin’ up.” (Which is pretty much how the working class felt by the end of the Reagan years, not to mention African-Americans and gays.) Springsteen, of course, put the kibosh on Reagan using his song, but Mike Huckabee has managed to sneak it into a few of his rallies over the past several months. Romney thought Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation” would play up his go-get-’em persona, failing to consider that Elvis’ ultimate goal was to get his woman to “close your mouth, open up your heart and, baby, satisfy me.” (more…)