Opinion: Rock the endorsements

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For that rare hipster who leans Republican (albeit of the leave-sex-and-drug-laws-to-states variety), Safari Sam’s has a Ron Paul fundraiser tonight. Just ten dollars — all of which goes to Operation Call 4 Paul — gets ticket holders performances by over a dozen acts rapping, rocking, playing the accordion, and looking pretty. Does this make Ron Paul the most rocking candidate? Certainly of the Republican camp.

On the Democratic side, Dennis Kucinich has Ani DiFranco’s vote. John Edwards has Lars Ulrich, Bonnie Raitt, and Seth Green, who played a guitarist on TV, anyway. Hillary Clinton should have lost all claims to the title when she picked a Celine Dion number as her official campaign tune. (OK, fine, she’s downplayed it, and voters did pick it, but she put it on the list.) But then Timbaland threw some money at her, and 50 Cent managed to be both pro-feminist and misogynist (surprise!) in the space of a few sentences: ‘It would be nice to see a woman be the actual president.... [Electing Hillary] is a way for us to have Bill Clinton be president again, and he did a great job during his term.’

Barack Obama wins this contest though. He’s called B-Rock. He gave shout outs to Jay-Z and Kanye West (and we all know how the 50/Kanye feud ended). He got shout-outs from Talib Kweli and Common. He used Jay-Z’s ’99 Problems’ at a rally. (Sample lyric: ‘I got 99 problems and a b**** ain’t one.’) And he leads the field among indie rockers, too. (It’s worth reading that post in full, or picking up the magazine. Run-of-the-mill political endorsements aren’t going to follow their picks with ‘Largely it seems we are still order off a menu that offers sh*t soup, sh*t sandwich, or sh*t salad.’)