In the inevitable election-year clash over a Republican presidential candidate using a progressive singer’s music as a campaign theme, Tom Petty is apparently sending Michele Bachmann’s campaign a cease-and-desist letter blocking Bachmann from using Petty’s “American Girl” on the campaign trail (Jackson Browne sued John McCain in 2008 to stop him from using “Running On Empty” in a campaign ad). The first verse of the song about “an American girl / raised on promises” contemplating “a great big world / With a lot of places to run to” is actually decent campaign music before it gets into the whole sexual desperation thing:
But mostly, the whole kerfuffle is a reminder of how hopelessly cheesy it is for the super-square people who run for president to try to score a hugely choreographed and unspontaneous process with popular music. Unless, of course, Jon Stewart is DJing:
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