Just heard something silly on XM-Sirius POTUS

[Alcibiades]

On Joe Mathieu's show, so I sent them a note:

Anne Schroeder Mullins claimed she "knows" that Garth Brooks is "not an Obama supporter" and "is a Republican because "Bill O'Reilly said so." To which Joe sagely replied: "I suppose all of those guys in the cowboy hats are."

Um, no.

I don't know what Mr. Brooks' party affiliation is nowadays, but back when I used to live in Oklahoma, when Mr. Brooks was at the peak of his popularity, lots of folks said at the time that he was a Democrat.

How about Willie Nelson? Dixie Chicks? How about Ralph Stanley, a LEGEND and an Obama endorser? The fact is that you're showing yourself to be an east coast media elite-type, and O'Leilly is, too. Not all country stars, nor all country fans, are Republican. Many are not. The Democrats are the party of the people, and country music is music for these sorts of folks: ordinary working people.

[TNDemo]

1. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are also democrats.

Tim is contemplating a run for TN governor. The real songwriting community in Nashville is pretty liberal from what I have seen.

[Alcibiades]

4. I thought Tim McGraw switched

Just in time for 08, but endorsed Obama anyway? Who knows, but I'm rather tired of the assumption that there are no "blue" people in supposedly "red" states.

There is, apparently, a book on this very subject

http://www.amazon.com/Rednecks-Bluenecks-Politics-Country-Music/dp/1595580174

From the part I was able to read online, there's a lot of producers/songwriters and others in the industry who are Democrats.

What I always take issue with is that, traditionally, it's not southern Democrats who are weird: historically, we have been the norm. Back when the Republicans instituted the southern strategy, they left lots of folks in the party who were not and never were going to be George Wallace folks. We get painted as a monolithic block of ignorant Republican hillbillies, even though of southerners aplenty fought for the Union, there were southern abolitionists, and one of my own kinfolk was a labor organizer in the south in the 1870's (though he was run off and had to move to Ohio).

Anyone who thinks that someone who wears a cowboy hat as part of their job is automatically a Republican should be precluded from practicing journalism, even on satellite radio.

[bunkerbuster1]

2. Not a Garth fan, but

I find it very hard to imagine that the man who wrote "We Shall Be Free" could vote for Bush.

[spanone]

5. amen, check the lyrics

This ain't comin' from no prophet
Just an ordinary man
When I close my eyes I see
The way this world shall be
When we all walk hand in hand

When the last child cries for a crust of bread
When the last man dies for just words that he said
When there's shelter over the poorest head
We shall be free

When the last thing we notice is the color of skin
And the first thing we look for is the beauty within
When the skies and the oceans are clean again
Then we shall be free

We shall be free
We shall be free
Stand straight, walk proud
'Cause we shall be free
When we're free to love anyone we choose
When this world's big enough for all different views
When we all can worship from our own kind of pew
Then we shall be free
We shall be free

We shall be free
Have a little faith
Hold out
'Cause we shall be free

And when money talks for the very last time
And nobody walks a step behind
When there's only one race and that's mankind
Then we shall be free

We shall be free
We shall be free
Stand straight, walk proud, have a little faith, hold out
We shall be free

We shall be free
We shall be free
Stand straight, have a little faith

We shall be free

[immoderate]

3. George Jones and Merle Haggard are Dems too.

--IMM

[Alcibiades]

6. Cool

I never meant to write an exhaustive list. Lots of country stars seem pretty reluctant to be overtly political, which is strange, because there have been so many great country songs that speak to the working class experience.