{"id":544,"date":"2012-10-31T10:11:39","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T08:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=544"},"modified":"2015-07-21T19:43:46","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T17:43:46","slug":"election-2012-the-music-videos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/election-2012-the-music-videos\/","title":{"rendered":"Election 2012: The music videos"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the highlights<\/span> of my USA ’08 Special Report for Spotlight Online<\/a> was a review<\/span> of all the different music videos that expressed the election campaign in song. Will.i.am’s “Yes, We Can” video, along with Barelypolitical’s Obama Girl series, started an avalanche<\/span> of user-made songs and parodies about all the candidates that kept us entertained for a year. There were almost too many songs to mention.<\/p>\n

The year 2012 has been very different. YouTube users failed to get excited enough about the candidates to go out and write songs about them. The campaigns were unexciting and uneventful, so that was no surprise.<\/p>\n

About a month ago, however, that suddenly changed \u2014 and now I’m proud to present my own Oscars, if you will, for political songs in four categories, judged on technical merit<\/span>, humor, clever lyrics<\/span>, overall catchiness<\/span>, and skillful dance moves. Feel free to suggest other videos you’ve found in the comments section.<\/p>\n

iPad users may not see the embedded<\/span> videos here. Click on “Direct link” to watch each one on YouTube \u2014 where you’ll usually find the lyrics as well.<\/p>\n

Our first category is…<\/p>\n

Best original songs<\/h2>\n

The Kaufer Clan<\/b>\u2019s “The Obama Smackdown”<\/b> lends a funky sound to the kind of superhero imagery we saw in the 2008 campaign.<\/p>\n