Rocker makes strange bedfellow for GOP sheriff

The Republican Party bills itself as the party of family values, but not only does it fail to support middle class families, they associate themselves with some strange people: like rightwing extremist ex-rocker Ted Nugent.

In a brief in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, “Republican gubernatorial candidate and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard this week "joined" rock music legend Ted Nugent to call for an amendment to Michigan's Constitution to create a "legal right to hunt and fish."”

I’m not sure why we need such an amendment, and that’s just a political ploy. But why would any supposedly family values political candidate want to be associated with someone like Nugent? The answer is the money and the press. Not only that, it’s hard for Republicans to find a pop or rock artist that supports Republicans.

You will recall that in the 2008 Presidential election, the rock group Boston told former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee that he could no longer use the song “More than a feeling” as his theme song, and liberal rocker John Mellencamp told Arizona Republican Senator John McCain not to use any of his songs at events.

I guess Bouchard can use a Nugent song for his theme song. “Cat Scratch Fever,” or “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” would do nicely. After all, Nugent is quoted as saying:

"My man, Mike Bouchard, is the kind of leader and hunting buddy Michigan needs. We need a leader in truth who will continue to stand up for our guns, God and beliefs," Nugent said.

And what a guy to have as your man. Upstanding citizen Nugent could have faced statuary rape charges for sleeping with his 17-year-old Hawaiian girlfriend Pele Massa, so he talked her parents into allowing him to adopt her.

Like many Republicans, Nugent is pro-war, except when it comes for him to actually serve in combat. The famous story he has told numerous times has him stopping all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showing up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces, winning a deferment from serving in Vietnam. However, since Nugent has become a darling of the Republicans and appears on Faux “news” regularly, he has changed the story and now says he enrolled at Oakland Community College and got a deferment. Events say that is highly unlikely, but at a minimum it makes him a liar.

Why he has anything to do the Governor’s race or Michigan is beyond me. He voluntary left Michigan in 2004 when he moved his family to Crawford, Texas, where George Bush once owned a sprawling ranch and spent the majority of his time instead of at the White House.

I was a Nugent fan in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I still like some of his early stuff. The irrelevant stuff he said on local Detroit radio stations was funny and rebellious, but it didn’t have the hateful, misinformed tone it does now. But I have also matured since then.

Boston founder tells Huckabee to sing a different tune

Another Republican presidential candidate has been called out for the unauthorized use of a rock song as part of their campaign. This time it’s former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Boston founder Tom Scholz objecting to the use of the ’70s hit “More than a feeling.”

Huckabee has even performed the song with one-time Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau - who played briefly with the band in 1980 – at campaign events with Huckabee on bass. Scholz formed the band in 1975. The former MIT graduate and mechanical engineer had recorded most of debut album in his basement studio, and he wrote “More than a feeling” and played all of the guitar parts in the song that reached No. 5 on the Billboard charts in 1976.

Scholz is a Barack Obama supporter. He wrote a letter to Huckabee asking him to stop using the song, and he also said playing with Goudreau does not imply permission.

“Boston has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything Boston stands for,” Scholz wrote.

Earlier this month liberal rocker John Mellencamp objected to Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain using his songs at presidential rallies, causing McCain to sing a different tune.

McCain his sour note with rocker Mellencamp

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain can officially start his campaign for President after his nearest competitor, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, bowed out, but McCain will have to change the tunes he plays at his campaign events after liberal rocker John Mellencamp pulled the plug on McCain using his songs.

The McCain camp has been playing Mellencamp hits “Our Country” – which Chevrolet uses very heavily in its TV ads – and "Pink Houses." Mellencamp is a liberal, and he most recently supported former North Carolina Democratic Senator John Edwards for president before he dropped out of the race.

Apparently, Mellencamp had his publicist contact the McCain campaign to ask them to stop using the songs, and published reports said Mellencamp wanted to know why someone who is trying to woo the conservative vote would want to be associated with songs that glorify the working man and labor. The McCain camp quietly stopped using the songs.

Mellencamp hails from the border state of Indiana, growing up in the small town of Seymour. His impressive body of work that has earned him enshrinement in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next month has solidly identified him as a icon of bedrock small town, Midwestern values, singing about the plight of farmers, small town life and poverty.

He has been an activist for the poor and the farmer, and in the '80s Mellencamp teamed up with country singer Willie Nelson to raise money for farmers with the Farm-Aid concerts.

No word on what music we can expect to hear at future McCain events.

I wonder who Bob Seger is endorsing?