More than two decades after Bill Clinton donned a pair of shades, busted out a saxophone and rode a memorable late-night performance of “Heartbreak Hotel” to the White House, other presidential hopefuls have tried — and struggled — to score a repeat.
Two of the candidates in this year’s field, Democratic hopeful Martin O’Malley and GOP aspirant Mike Huckabee, play in bands and occasionally take their shows on the road, jamming for voters in early primary states. But neither has managed to capture voters the way Mr. Clinton did in 1992 with his appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”
“Today, I don’t think there is more than a very minuscule part of the public that would ever be swayed by something like that,” said Eric Kasper, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire who has written extensively on the connection between pop culture and politics. “The Bill Clinton playbook is a good example because it came back to him forging an image — the fact he could play the sax well. He combined this with wearing the sunglasses, part of a bigger package. When it’s done that way to help the image, it can be a boost. But if you sing a song like Mitt Romney did if you can’t perform it well, it’s not going to come off well.”
Indeed, Mr. Romney — the former Republican governor of Massachusetts and the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee — and his ill-fated attempt to sing “America the Beautiful” as part of his campaign stump speech did more to hurt his image than help it. (The Obama re-election campaign even made Mr. Romney’s wobbly rendition the target of a mocking campaign attack ad.)
Music is central to campaigns, and to statecraft more broadly. Campaigns pump up crowds by playing energetic music, then candidates take the stage to their signature songs and are played off the stage to thumping music as well.
Mr. Clinton, again, was the master. Despite protestations from his campaign, he chose Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop,” and the song came to capture the generational clash between himself and then-President George H.W. Bush.
Playing the saxophone only reinforced that theme.
“I think that the Bill Clinton case was symptomatic of a realization that, in the changing media ecology politicians had to find new places in which to appear and to reach their voters — especially the young ones,” said John Street, a professor at the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia. Mr. Street specializes in the connection between politics and music, and other forms of pop culture.
“It’s tough for politicians to look ’cool,’” Mr. Street continued. “Playing the sax on TV is one way that you can, as opposed to a violin, say. But it’s risky too — Tony Blair posed with a guitar regularly, but usually sitting down and wearing a tie.”
Musical presidents
Mr. Clinton regularly stands at or near the top of the list of the best musicians to occupy the Oval Office, although Thomas Jefferson was an enthusiastic violinist and both Harry Truman and Richard Nixon were accomplished pianists. Warren G. Harding, who some scholars say may have been the nation’s most musical chief executive, played in the band that celebrated his 1920 convention nomination and once bragged that he could play “every instrument but the slide trombone and the E-flat cornet.”
Candidate Barack Obama did not sing on the stump, but his rare public musical stylings as president have tended to go viral. His impromptu singing of a single line from the Al Green hit “Let’s Stay Together” at a 2012 New York fundraiser proved wildly popular, and his campaign later offered it as a free ring tone. More daringly, the president concluded an emotional eulogy in July for the victims of the Charleston black church shooting by singing “Amazing Grace.”
“I knew I was going to sing,” Mr. Obama told aide Valerie Jarrett later. “I was just trying to figure out what key to sing it.”
Candidates today may even have more talent than Mr. Clinton, but they just don’t connect as well.
For decades Mr. O’Malley has fronted the Celtic folk group O’Malley’s March, and the band has consistently performed even as the former governor served in office and ran political campaigns. His campaign says supporters, especially in Iowa, frequently bring guitars to political events and ask Mr. O’Malley for autographs.
While he’s undeniably talented, there is little evidence Mr. O’Malley’s musical inclination has helped him form a bond with a specific bloc of voters.
The same can be said for Mr. Huckabee, a bassist who has played with the band Capitol Offense since 1996. The group has played at a number of political events over the years, including some in the key early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Neither the O’Malley nor Huckabee campaigns responded to questions about how, if at all, the candidates’ musical careers aided or hurt their political prospects.
Music can even get some candidates in trouble, often when the politics of the artists clash with the politics of the candidate.
In 2012 House Speaker Paul D. Ryan — then the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee — spoke often of his love for the hard-rock band Rage Against the Machine. But the band’s guitarist, Tom Morello, attacked Mr. Ryan and said that the political figure was the opposite of what the anti-establishment group stood for.
“Paul Ryan’s love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades,” Mr. Morello write in an op-ed for Rolling Stone magazine in August 2012.
Similarly, candidates can run into trouble when claiming to be fans of modern rock ’n’ roll and then being called out.
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for example, claimed in a 2006 interview to be a huge fan of the rock band the Arctic Monkeys, a group that at the time had just released its debut album and was making a mark for itself in both the U.K. and U.S.
When pressed, Mr. Brown was unable to name a single Arctic Monkeys song, leading many political observers to conclude he was lying and simply wanted to appeal to younger voters.
“When they get it wrong — Gordon Brown claiming to like the Arctic Monkeys — they get exposed as frauds,” Mr. Street said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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