Hitting the Right Note?

When I first heard the “Go Joe Song,” I was convinced it was a last-minute attempt at political satire. Who but a satirist would urge voting for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., in the presidential primary because “He’s got the longest name on the ballot/It’s the easiest to find”? The less-than-ringing endorsement of “So vote for the candidate/Who refuses to eat bacon” confirmed my suspicions.

Only one barrier stands between the dashed-off ditty and traditional political satire: the “Go Joe Song” was released by the Lieberman campaign itself. Cody S. Harris, the California campaign staffer who wrote and recorded the song, said that it is supposed to convey that the candidate is “a fun guy with a sense of humor.”

Unfortunately, Harris’s humor doesn’t approach the quality of classic campaign songs like 1949 Boston mayoral candidate Walter A. O’Brien’s “Charlie and the MTA” or “Happy Days Are Here Again,” which Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904 and a former Crimson president, adopted during his first White House run.

In fact, many of the jokes in Harris’s almost-satire are limper than the canned gags that Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., tosses off about the Curse of the Bambino.

In the first verse of the ”Go Joe Song,” a squeaky voice better suited to “Sesame Street” than Pennsylvania Avenue asks in the background, “Hi, who are you voting for?” Equivocally at first, another falsetto answers, “Joe, Joe Lieberman?” A few lame measures later, everyone’s resolve has strengthened with a crescendo into the oh-so-clever chorus of “Let’s go, Joe!”

Despite all of the song’s embarrassing verse, Harris has clearly been practicing his Lieberman talking points. In a sweeping attack on Joe’s opponents, we are reminded that “You may not always agree with him/But you’ll know just where he stands.” The song even plays off of the lingering anger from December of 2000, with a resentful “He’d be in the White House now/If it weren’t for all those chads!”

Though he says he wrote the song for music’s sake, Harris hopes that by circulating over e-mail the song will energize potential voters. “The point is here is a bunch of people singing about Joe Lieberman and you should sit there and tap your foot and sing too,” he explains.

Perhaps I will tap my foot some day, but first Joe needs to do better than than “Do it like you did in 2-0-0-0.” Popular vote aside, Dick Cheney sleeps in the vice president’s mansion these days. Maybe it wasn’t about hanging chads after all—maybe he just had a better songwriter.

—Joshua D. Gottlieb is a news comper.