John Mellencamp's situational singing (Obama fleeing Pennsylvania)

latimesblogs.latimes.com ^ | April 22, 2008 | Rick Pearson

[Berlin_Freeper]

So much for the supposition that singer John Mellencamp -- a proud Hoosier -- is a Barack Obama man.

When Obama's campaign announced that Mellencamp would be performing at the candidate's rally tonight in Evansville, Ind., jump-starting the state's May 6 presidential primary, it was widely seen as a tacit endorsement of the Illinois senator.

Shortly after the Obama announcement, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, entered an event in Pennsylvania with the sound of Mellencamp's "Small Town" playing. Her campaign also has Mellencamp's "Our Country" on its artists list. But by performing at an Obama event, questions swirled about how soon the songs would be removed from her playlist.

The answer, apparently, is that Mellencamp tunes will continue to be played at Clinton campaign events. Indeed, her campaign just announced that Mellencamp will perform on Saturday at a rally for the New York senator in Indianapolis.

Mellencamp had previously endorsed John Edwards for the Democratic nomination.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Mellencamp must be huge in Indiana (lol).

[kbennkc]

I wondered why the beast was using my favorite Chevy commercial music .

[Izzy Dunne]

Hoosier Daddy?

[Hegemony Cricket]

Pssshhh - “cougar” is such a flake...

[benjamin032]

Sounds like John Cougar is really just in it for the money.

[The KG9 Kid]

John Johnny Cougar Mellencougar Cougarcamp.

He should change his stage name one more time to "Dr. Heinrich Botox von Plastiksurgerystein auf Chevytruckcommercialjinglemeyerschmidt".

[Wallace T.]

If Obama loses by ten points or more in Pennsylvania, he is in a must win situation in Indiana. Many of the same elements at play in the Keystone State are found in the Hoosier State, specifically, a large white working class living in smaller cities and towns that is pro-gun and pro-religion (though considerably more Protestant in IN than in PA), a smallish proportion of upper middle class white liberals (likely even smaller in IN than in PA), and a relatively small black population (9.9% in PA vs. 8.3% in IN). The successful Democrat candidates both nationally (Carter and Clinton) and at the state level (Evan Bayh in IN and Ed Rendell in PA) have made strong inroads into the blue collar white vote. Those that failed (Kerry, Dukakis, Mondale) lost many of the Reagan Democrat voters to their GOP rivals.

[Bookwoman]

Mellencamp is FROM Indiana...

[CholeraJoe]

When Hillary came to Evansville, she only filled a high school gym. Obama is having his event tonight at Roberts Stadium seating 12,500. I don’t suppose they’ll let me in with paint-filled balloons or a dead skunk.

[StAnDeliver]

I like John on a personal level, but he fancies himself a child of the 60s (coughcoughcough), a Peter Pan poet hippie with an 80s haircut, and an unrepentant yellow-dog Democrat. He and Edwards are two stitches from the same cloth.

[karnage]

The dead skunk will already be there, delivering the keynote address.

[L,TOWM]

Of Ulm.

[The KG9 Kid]

Jahwohl.

[The KG9 Kid]

John Cougarcamp’s career has been suckin’ on a chili dog behind the Tastee Freeze since that awful ‘Blood On The Scarecrow’ album.

[StAnDeliver]

I think he ran out of gas one after -- The Lonesome Jubilee. "Scarecrow" is redeemed by his career-best song, "Minutes To Memories". In fact, it's a rebuke to everything Obama stands for:

"Days turn to minutes
And minutes to memories
Life sweeps away the dreams
That we have planned
You are young and you are the future
So suck it up and tough it out
And be the best you can

Another hot one out on Highway 11
This is my life its what I've chosen to do
There are no free rides; no one said it'd be easy
The old man told me this my son, I'm telling it to you

[Bookwoman]

When Obama came to South Bend they let him have a rally at a local high school after hours - after telling Hillary she couldn’t use the schools. There were a lot of people who showed up to see Obama, but a lot of people were up in arms because they thought it wasn’t fair. There was almost more on the news about the unfairness of it all than Obama’s actual visit.

[CholeraJoe]

Obama sure drew a big crowd last night in Evansville. Every inside shot I saw showed Roberts Stadium packed. It was carried live by the local Fox affiliate and also picked up by Fox News.

Of course Hillary’s ads ran during the commercial breaks. I found it quite ironic that her ads slam President Bush for sending Indiana jobs to China, when in fact it was her husband who arranged the deal.