Where Would We Be Today If Hillary Clinton Had Campaigned Behind “Rhythm Nation”?

noah | November 4, 2008 2:00 am

What with all the controversy over certain campaigns using certain songs this season, it was enlightening to read Hillary Clinton adviser/music blogger Howard Wolfson’s discussion of how the Clinton campaign went about branding itself musically earlier this year, a decision that was quite fraught because of her Senatorial run’s use of Billy Joel’s “Captain Jack.” (Seriously! “Captain Jack”! Was Hillary running on a “getting the people of New York high tonight” platform in 1999?) Wolfson ran down a few potential theme songs that were shot down for various reasons by Clinton insiders in today’s New York Times:

KT Tunstall, “Suddenly I See”

“What about the singer’s use of the word ‘hell’?”

Four Tops, “Get Ready”

“Too sexual.” (Also, um, too “by the Temptations,” no?)

Janet Jackson, “Rhythm Nation”

“What about that unfortunate wardrobe malfunction?”

And so on. (Is Janet Jackson having the worst year or what?) So then the campaign decided: Why not put it to the people? And the people picked a song that Celine Dion had sung in honor of Air Canada, which Wolfson–and this site!–jokingly, and correctly, cited as the beginning of the end of her campaign. Oh, Hillary, if you’d only looked past that exposed nipple for the sake of turning America into a true Rhythm Nation!

What Did Celine Dion Do To Hillary Clinton? [NYT]