Prometheus 6

Hillary's tone-deaf campaign
A Celine Dion theme song? Written for Air Canada?
Rosa Brooks
June 22, 2007

AFTER MUCH trumped-up suspense, Hillary Clinton's campaign announced this week — via a YouTube spoof of the last episode of "The Sopranos" — that the votes are in.

No, sorry, not those votes. You'll have to endure another year of stilted YouTube spots before the last presidential primary votes are cast.

I mean the votes from the Clinton campaign's YouTube "pick our theme song" contest. And, in case you missed this major national event, the winning song was "You and I," by Celine Dion.

Clinton staffers have declared the "pick our theme song" contest a resounding success. And who knows what her wacky campaign will do next? Maybe Clinton will soon have YouTube viewers select her campaign's strategy for ending Iraq's civil war or reducing greenhouse gases. If she's going to base her decisions on the lowest common denominator, Clinton could just eliminate her cadre of overcompensated consultants and pollsters and go straight to YouTube for all her policy needs.

And Celine Dion really is the lowest common denominator. If the SAT's analogies section tested politics and pop culture, even the dimmest teenager would agree that "Hillary Clinton: Politics = Celine Dion: Music." Both Clinton and Dion have enjoyed astounding career success. Both showed early talent but are now widely accused of being sellouts. Dion's interesting, edgy early songs were replaced, during her bid for superstardom, by trite and formulaic crowd pleasers; Clinton's interesting, edgy early policy positions were replaced, during her bid for elected office, by trite and formulaic crowd pleasers.