Wired Magazine goes in.
Word is that Alaska governor, Republican vice presidential nominee and airborne wolf huntress Sarah Palin gave one of her children the middle name “Van” so that his name would rhyme with Van Halen. After all, one of its best-selling albums, 1984, did come out the same year she competed in the Miss Alaska pageant.
John McCain (who may or may not have been aware of her predilection for the guitar legend) played the band’s pop anthem “Right Now” after announcing Palin as his running mate. For the record, Van Halen didn’t given the Republican ticket permission to use the song — and they say they wouldn’t even if asked. We see a pattern here … McCain faces a lawsuit from Jackson Browne for infringing copyright by using Browne’s song “Running on Empty” without permission.
Anyway, on to the Democrats. We know Barack Obama running mate Joe Biden is a staunch supporter of the RIAA and other copyright interests through his sponsorship of the Perform Act, which tried to prevent people from recording satellite and internet radio, and the fact that he was one of only four senators invited to the RIAA’s champagne party in celebration of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which makes it a felony to rip a DVD.
Biden was also a main supporter of the RAVE Act — a nightmare of a law that was apparently intended in part as a way to charge crack house owners for illegal activity taking place on their premises, but which has resulted in night club owners and rave organizers being arrested for merely hosting parties. (Even Fox News has called the act “raving lunacy.”)
If Palin has a stance on copyright reform we haven’t heard about it, although apparently she has a record of trying to ban certain books from the state’s libraries. This indicates that she might have a latent Tipper Gore-like tendency to censor music as well, despite her appreciation of the creators of post-innuendo ditties as “Hot for Teacher” and “Everybody Wants Some.”
On the balance, neither candidate appears to offer much for music fans, although Palin doesn’t have much of a voting record to compare with that of the longtime senator Biden. But on the surface, we’d have to imagine that a Van Halen fan who used to wear humorous T-shirts (“I may be broke but I’m not flat busted”) is a better choice than a spoilsport who supported the Perform and Rave Acts.
