Politico made waves this morning with some important — indeed, perhaps decisive — news that has shaken up the race for the 2024 Republican nomination. Picking up on a recent viral social-media “20 songs” challenge (the idea was to name 20 songs that speak particularly to you or give you special joy), the doughty newshounds covering the fast-developing race canvassed all the candidates, asking them to “pick the songs that stir their souls.” As National Review’s resident popular-music snob-historian, I consider this metric as good a proxy as any to judge fitness for the highest office in the land, and since I know my opinion drives that of the masses, I will now pass judgment on each Republican respondent in the hopes that we will see a correlating surge in the polls.
NOTE: Some of the higher-profile Republican presidential candidates (e.g., Ron DeSantis, Doug Burgum, etc.) failed to submit song-list responses to Politico. They have thus been excluded from consideration and, regrettably, have also been legally disqualified from seeking the presidency this cycle. (If it’s any consolation to his fans, Donald Trump always seemed like a bit of a long shot to snag the 2024 GOP nomination anyway.)
The Power Rankings
(6) Vivek Ramaswamy: America’s foremost pen salesman was able to respond to Politico’s entirely reasonable request with only eight picks. He performs one of those picks regularly on campaign stops. One is by Fall Out Boy. Another by Aerosmith. Two by Imagine Dragons. He probably hasn’t even listened to the Dolly Parton song he listed. Finally, he ends with a song by a communist.
VERDICT: Vivek Ramaswamy must be launched into the sun, or at the very least the Libertarian Party.
TIE: (5) Will Hurd: I’ve been running an obsessive-compulsive scholarly music podcast for NR over the last six years, and I recognized exactly two songs from forgotten congressman/forgotten candidate Will Hurd’s list as anything more than names. One was a Taylor Swift track that even coma patients subliminally know. (I just assume the U.S. government unwittingly funded the gain-of-function research necessary to synthesize something as virally contagious as “Shake It Off” in a lab somewhere.) The other track is the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” a bad riff tied to a bad performance of a bad song by an untalented non-band. To give you some sense of the faceless gorm on offer here: There is a Hootie and the Blowfish song on Will Hurd’s list, and bizarrely it’s not even the one Hootie and the Blowfish song you probably know. That’s about all I can say about this list or about Will Hurd, except to point out one thing that will forever militate in his favor: He is not Vivek Ramaswamy.
TIE: (5) Asa Hutchinson: The former Arkansas governor is also not Vivek Ramaswamy, which is a good thing because he too fell short of the mark by submitting a mere eight songs to represent his entire politico-psychological weltanschauung for the critically oriented American voting public. That said, at least Hutchinson’s list represents some solid conservative good sense, with American folk classics like “Stack-O-Lee” and Johnny Cash’s “Get Rhythm” represented alongside fellow Razorback Levon Helm’s performance of The Band’s “Ophelia.” I’ll also give credit to good ol’ Asa for also including the Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four” on his list, given that he’s already a full eight years on from finding out whether he would still inspire needing and/or require feeding from his wife.
(3) Chris Christie: Christie comes barreling through in the absence of Trump with a meat-and-potatoes classic-rock list pitched directly at normie sensibilities yet revealing an essentially quotidian, uncreative mind. From common-coin radio hits like “Thunder Road,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” and “Gimme Shelter” to despicable garbage like “Livin’ on a Prayer” or Coldplay’s unforgivable “Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall,” the only thing distinguishing these tracks is their depressingly unsurprising ubiquity. If I turned on 94.7 WLS Chicago — our city’s “schlock oldies” station — for an hour I would be able to tape Christie’s entire playlist, and be poorer for the experience. (The inclusion of both Bryan Adams AND Aerosmith’s “Dream On” grates in particular — no chief executive can plausibly have taste that bad.)
(2) Nikki Haley: Just as the former South Carolina governor has been on the move in the polls after a solid first-debate performance, so too will her numbers surely spike after she places this highly in the musical power rankings with a solid late-’70s/’80s “rock radio” list. From Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll” (which I very much do not love myself) to Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” (which I once got into a fistfight defending), the list reflects normie American-girl sensibilities so much so that, yes you guessed it, Tom Petty’s “American Girl” makes it as well. (And why not? It’s a fine song.) The freshness of her picks is a pleasant contrast to Christie’s; these songs are fun, lively, a good time for the most part. A couple of newer songs — Hozier does nothing for me, and America will soon wish it forgot about Luke Combs’s thrashing of Tracy Chapman’s original “Fast Car” — distract from a list mostly located solidly in the good ol’ Reagan Eighties (Def Leppard, Blondie, Bananarama, The Go-Gos) just like much of Nikki Haley’s appeal herself. It may not be enough to make her president; surely it is enough to qualify her for something like, I don’t know, let’s say ambassador to the United Nations.
(1) Larry Elder: Bluntly put: On the basis of his musical selections, Larry Elder should be immediately installed as president of the United States. The choice has never been clearer.
With a list based solidly in Sixties and Seventies soul and pop classics (there’s some Boyz II Men and Phil Collins, but this is mostly old-school), chosen with personal quirk, Elder demonstrates the musical taste of a natural commander in chief. He certainly qualifies for secretary of R&B: Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” is matched with Otis Redding’s classic cover of Sam’s “Shake,” the Smokey Robinson-era Temptations get two classics with “My Girl” and “It’s Growing,” and Aretha, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, and the Staple Singers all make appearances alongside some Motown greats. There’s some pop here and there (Simon & Garfunkel qualify with “Bridge over Troubled Water,” the Beatles with “Let It Be” — Elder really loves his circa-1970 piano ballads, apparently), but mostly this is a tour through the sounds of the black Sixties and also the only one of these playlists that would make a monster party soundtrack.
The results are in, they have been evaluated fairly and impartially, and the verdict could not be clearer: It’s time for all conservatives of good conscience to get behind presumptive Republican nominee Laurence Allen Elder as the man who, if elected, would truly make America’s Spotify playlists great again.