Every now and then, a writer will attempt to grab stupidity by the tail but succeed in grabbing brilliance by the horns. Screenwriters Chris Mattheson and Ed Solomon did this with “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” in 1989. I did this while explaining the Trump phenomenon through the lens of professional wrestling in 2018. Recently Politico Magazine did this in a piece attempting to compile the top 20 songs of the various individuals running for president.
In a fluffy kind of way, this kind of piece is nice. It’s delightful to catch a waft of humanity from people whose personalities all seem to have been sandblasted away and repainted with the generic brush by public relations consultants years ago. It’s also nice to discover that people who have drastically different visions for our country can still share our musical tastes — a reminder that art can still trump ideology in the era of Trump.
I imagine that’s what Politico was aiming for in this piece. Instead, it gave us a clearer look into the minds of these POTUS-hopefuls than any pre-election exposé or post-election memoir could offer. While only a handful of the presidential candidates responded, those who did respond offered playlists that are a perfect crystallization of their respective weaknesses and strengths. Let’s look at some of their selections:
Chris Christie
Thunder Road — Bruce Springsteen
Gimme Shelter — Rolling Stones
Pressure — Billy Joel
Livin’ on a Prayer — Bon Jovi
Pink Houses – John Mellencamp
Run to
