"Politicians love mellencamp. Jack and diane."

I wrote that in my iPhone notes on April 1, when I was waiting in the overflow room at the Romney rally. I looked that up this morning after writing about Mellencamp supposedly being "not amused" that they're playing his song "Small Town" at Scott Walker rallies. That post also notes that Mellencamp once performed "Small Town" at an Obama rally. Neither Walker nor Obama were born in a small town or stayed put in a small town with "little opportunity" — as the song goes — but the song somehow still sounds right.

But "Jack and Diane" — is that a good song for a politician, if you start listening to the words?

Suckin' on chili dogs outside the Tastee Freez
Diane's sittin' on Jackie's lap, he's got his hand between her knees
Jackie say "Hey, Diane let's run off behind a shady tree"
Dribble off those Bobbie Brooks slacks, let me do what I please

I'm sitting there in the overflow room, thinking about how Mitt wooed Ann back in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in the 1960s. Bobbie Brooks was a brand of clothes that teenage girls were proud to wear — not cheap, but if you babysat a little, you could buy them. In 1968, you were hoping to look like this:



Maybe that helps you picture young Ann and Mitt at the Tastee Freez.

"Scott Walker's Using John Mellencamp's Music; Mellencamp is Not Amused."

Oh! Mellencamp not amused. According to headline writers at The Nation. Walker is using Mellencamp's classic song about a small town, "Small Town." (Scott Walker was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which currently has a population over 400,000.)

The article at The Nation is by John Nichols, whose only factual basis for the claim of non-amusement is that "The musician's publicist contacted the Walker campaign to inform them" that Mellencamp is "very pro-collective bargaining and the fight for a living wage." I don't know what that has to do with Walker's limits on unions representing public workers, who are trying to maintain their good salaries and benefits, not private industry workers at a level where they have to "fight for a living wage," who actually sound like the kind of people who would vote for Walker.

Mellencamp is not demanding that Walker... stop using his music. But, as the rocker did when Republican John McCain started using his song "Our Country" in 2008, Mellencamp is reminding Republicans that he is not one of them -- and that his songs are not written to celebrate their policies.

Are they written to "celebrate" anybody's politics? Seems to me Mellencamp is open to all sorts of fans, and I wouldn't be surprised if he is quietly pleased that politicians, including conservative politicians, find his songs apt.

"He's a very liberal person," [publicist Bob] Merlis says of the singer, who performed "Small Town" at a rally for Barack Obama in 2008, recorded a radio ad for Obama and appeared at Obama's inagural [sic] in 2009.

Nichols lamely stretches, saying "Mellencamp has even addressed recall politics," and going on to talk activities related to the recall of California Governor Gray Davis in 2003:

An ardent for [sic] of former President George Bush's Iraq War policies, Mellencamp wrote: "The Governor of California was removed from office based on finance troubles. And yet George W. Bush has lied to us, failed to keep our own borders secure, entered a war under false pretense, endangered lives, and created financial chaos. How is it that he hasn't been recalled?...

And that should count against Walker? Mellencamp seems to like financial discipline. Nichols ends his nitwit piece by fantasizing about Mellencamp coming to Wisconsin and singing "Small Town" at a rally for Walker's opponent, who will be one of these 4 characters. (What would they do to help the economy in Wisconsin? Their ideas ranged from spending on education to ending "partisan bickering.")

Anyway, I will now leave John Nichols to his private dreamy dreams about Mellencamp, the 60-year-old Hoosier who just might care very deeply about government workers in Wisconsin.