The GOP Needs New Talent

And I’m not talking politics.  I’m talking about how Republicans love (and steal) the music of liberal performers.

Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (R-CA) got burned for using for using altered-lyric version of Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” and “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” for his campaign’s Web ads. David Byrne is suing Gov. Charlie Crist (I-FL) for using “Road To Nowhere” in a Web ad during his previous Republican Senate primary fight, and of course, as we reported yesterday, Rush cut to the chase and told Senate nominee Rand Paul (R-KY) to stop playing “Tom Sawyer” and “The Spirit of Radio.”

The Orleans song “Still The One” has a special place in politics as it has been used not once without the band’s permission, but twice — and the first instance contributed to its author’s entrance into national politics. In 2004, the Bush campaign used the song at a rally. As the song’s main author, John Hall, told MSNBC in 2008: “George Bush was busy campaigning on an ‘ownership society,’ yet never asked me, the band, or the publishers for permission.” Hall and other stakeholders in the song quickly sent a cease-and-desist letter, and the Bush campaign dropped the song.

They’ve also used, without permission, the works of…

Jackson Browne,  Van Halen, Wilson sisters from Heart,  John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, and Bruce Springsteen

(h/t TPM for putting this list together)

Kinda gives new meaning to the term Free Market.  And why would they even want to dip into the liberal, creative well when they have talent such as this on their side.