Fifty years after Wanda Jackson unleashed her country snarl on the world with her breakout hit “Let’s Have a Party,” the first woman of rockabilly (a.k.a. the Queen) is telling her story. Jackson — who has dated Elvis Presley, toured with Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash, and recorded with Elvis Costello and the Cramps — is the star of The Sweet Lady With the Nasty Voice, a documentary that will make its TV debut on the Smithsonian Channel on May 18th (see clip, above). The film follows the singer, 70, over the past two years as she tours Europe and the U.S. and includes vintage clips of her live shows, as well as interviews with Costello, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, who give props to Jackson for influencing their music. So how did the mild-mannered girl from Oklahoma break into the rock & roll boys’ club? “The guys I was working with — Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash — I felt like if they can do it, I can do it,” says Jackson. “Sometimes I did it better.”
The Obama campaign has been pushing what they’re calling the Indiana “Limbaugh effect” pretty hard in the last 24 hours. They put out two memos last night citing the underhanded influence of the right-wing pundit and his quest to prolong the race via “Operation Chaos,” and John Kerry stressed the idea in this morning’s conference call with reporters, saying Limbaugh was “tampering with the primary.”
Here is the camp’s argument:
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According to the latest exit polling data, 17% of voters in the Indiana primary today said they would vote for John McCain in a Clinton/McCain matchup.
41% of that number is constituted by people who voted Clinton in the primary but also indicated they will vote for McCain in the general election.
That comes out to just under 7% of the primary electorate the number that may be attributed to a “Limbaugh Effect.”
The math in this case is a tough nut to crack, as no hard and fast evidence exists to prove how many Republicans came out for Hillary simply because El Rushbo said so. Even with a rabid following, seven percent is rather enormous. But considering the narrowest of margins Clinton won by, Limbaugh’s gospel might have been the deciding factor.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a greater Jon Stewart enthusiast than myself, but last night’s interview with John McCain left me a little disappointed with the convivially caustic pundit.
About halfway through the interview — after signaling the end of “pleasantries” — Stewart invoked the unsinkable “Reverend Wright issue” and its accompanied queasiness among voters.
As Frank Rich wrote in the Sunday Times this week, McCain’s courting of maladjusted televangelist Rev. John Hagee’s endorsement should be no less vexing than Barack Obama’s relationship with Wright. Hagee, who speaks of the Catholic Church as “the Great Whore,” suggested Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for scheduling a gay parade through the streets of New Orleans.
After setting up the Wright segue, it looked like Stewart was going down that trail. “You have your own religious… person endorsing your campaign that Americans have expressed greater concern over,” he told McCain. “Will you take the opportunity right now to repudiate and denounce…
…President Bush?”
The line roused the audience yet proved a wasted opportunity in the end. McCain jokingly walked off the set, but there’s no doubt he was inwardly wiping his brow in relief.
Stewart’s friendship with the candidate is no secret; McCain, after all, has now appeared a whopping 13 times on the Daily Show, more than any other guest since Stewart took the helm in 1999. Though it’s unfair and unwise to expect a Russert-style grilling between buds on a faux news show, Stewart still could have – and should have – asked the Republican nominee about an issue that could potentially plague him as much as his competition.
Even though Clinton squeaked through with the popular vote tonight in Indiana, the fat lady has begun her aria. Clinton doesn’t have any rabbits left in the hat.
There are no meta states left. Pennsylvania or Indiana could be made to represent more than their voters. They could be spun as the heartland — Mainstreet America — having second thoughts about the exotic Obama.
But the pundit class — which is the only thing that’s keeping the Clinton campaign afloat amid the leaden math — aren’t going to buy that when it comes to West Virginia and Kentucky. Puerto Rico isn’t a game changer either.
And Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota — they’re Obama country.
Clinton really needed to pull the rug out from Obama in North Carolina to keep this deal alive. Instead he fought her to a draw in Indiana. And it seems. At last. She’s done.
She’ll get one last confetti moment in West Virginia. But that should also be the night Obama takes the overall pledged delegate prize, and with, it a ticket to Denver.
Because February 5th, March 4th, and April 22nd clearly weren’t grand enough opportunities to lock up the Democratic nomiation, today’s primaries in North Carolina and Indiana are now, according to the candidates, the “decisive” contests in this Bataan Death March…er…endless electoral process.
Or not. That would be too easy!
Two months ago, Hillary’s campaign looked crispy-fried. The math seemed insurmountable for the remaining contests, as Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter went through painstaking measures to convey. Obama, it was assumed, would win handily among Tar Heels and Hoosiers, his neighbors to the east, crushing Clinton once and for all.
But the consensus now is that today will be a political “Groundhog Day,” yielding six more weeks of campaigning. Clinton is apt to take Indiana and Obama North Carolina. So with no clear victor, the dynamics of the race remain largely unchanged.
Six states are left to go after today, ending with South Dakota and Montana on June 3rd. Maybe we can wrap this into a neat little package by then?
Every week, Hit or Hype wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet. This week: a few choice picks from the charts at BlogFreshRadio.
**The Band:** CSS
**The Buzz:** CSS means Cansei de Ser Sexy, which in turn means “Tired of being sexy.” Fittingly, this Brazilian group pairs sly, self-aware lyrics with bright, buoyant pop.
**Listen If:** You’re itching for an update of Cibo Matto’s giddy electro.
**Key Track:** “Rat is Dead (Rage),” which sounds like Sonic Youth if Sonic Youth finally decided to give in and write that radio pop song.
**The Band:** Sloan
**The Buzz:** Power-pop vets return with another record of sunshine supersongs.
**Listen If:** Your idea of “bubblegum pop” is the Raspberries and mid-period Kinks.
**Key Track:** The Sloan catalog is vast and work exploring, but the current Key Track is “Witch’s Wand,” where a steady guitar chug is illuminated by bursts of vocal harmony.
**The Band:** South
**The Buzz:** Decade-old UK pop band returns with new record, same sound.
**Listen If:** You spend days dreaming of the intersection of Britpop and indie rock.
**Key Track:** “Better Things,” a light and lovely bit of folk-pop that takes its time arriving at its yearning chorus.
[*Photo: Getty*]