The Singer Not The Song

August 12, 2008 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Election 2008 

As the Democratic Convention in Denver draws nearer, The Times (London) reports today that Senator Obama has asked British singer Joss Stone to write and record a theme song for his campaign.

Ordinarily one would dismiss such news as the work of lower-level campaign operatives. But that seems not to be the case:

Mr Obama is said to have approached the 21-year-old from Devon personally to ask her to write a one-off track, partly because he believes her music has cross-racial appeal.

Stone, who spends up to nine months a year in the US, was said to be “honoured” to have been asked and is now in a recording studio working on the song.

After being once burned by the not-wise-but-too-well support recently demonstrated by the rapper Ludacris, one might have expected the campaign to be more wary in its musical outreach.

Ms. Stone —who has only been legally entitled to be served a drink in this country since last April— has appeared on both the London Sunday Times‘ “Rich List” of the UK’s hundred wealthiest people in the UK and on Maxim’s Hot List (#87 in answer to your question). So she’s clearly doing something right.

I am second to no man in my support for free trade……but wasn’t there a talented American singer who might just as well have been tapped for this very prestigious and very visible gig? I mean, I’m just asking.

Perhaps Ms. Stone might have been put to more canny political use entertaining at this fundraiser which has already attracted some critical attention:

Academy award winning actor George Clooney is set to host a fundraiser for Barack Obama in Switzerland next month.

The event, taking place on the evening of September 2 in Geneva, Switzerland will be split into two parts: a reception and a dinner. According to Obama’s National Finance Committee, tickets for the reception where Clooney will speak are going for $1,000, followed by a dinner at the home of NFC member Charles Adams for $10,000 a plate. Space for the dinner is limited to 75 guests.

Clooney made headlines in February when he told CNN he was hesitant to campaign for the presumptive Democratic nominee, calling it a ‘slippery slope.’

“I feel that at times you can harm the person that you are trying to help,” Clooney told CNN’s Kiran Chetry in reference to campaigning for Obama. “I don’t want to damage anybody.”

The Academy Award winning actor officially endorsed Obama early last year calling him a ‘rock star.’ Clooney compared him to the likes of John and Robert Kennedy saying, “Few people in my lifetime, that I’ve heard speak made me want to get up and do something,” but cautioned, “I don’t want to hurt him by saying that.”

Although next months fundraiser is taking place overseas, the campaign specified only U.S. Citizens with a passport will be allowed to contribute to the campaign.

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