Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Bon Jovi an elder statesman????

*Snicker*

He calls her "Mrs. C." And she calls on him to add a little celebrity gloss to her presidential campaign.

The rock singer Jon Bon Jovi and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been friends for more than a decade, uniting for state dinners at the White House and campaign fund-raisers.

If it seems strange that a rocker who sings paeans of working-class New Jersey is so friendly with a senator and former first lady who is using a Celine Dion song as the theme of her presidential campaign, consider a few items on Bon Jovi's social calendar in the last few months.

There were dinners with Clinton and another Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, her fiercest rival for the nomination, asked Bon Jovi to hear him speak in New York. And the former Vice President Al Gore caught up with him in London for a photo op.

Bon Jovi, 45, whose tousled golden mane and porcelain-white smile have twice helped him earn People magazine's award for sexiest rock star, can lay claim to an unofficial new title these days: the New Jersey's elder statesman.

In New Jersey, it is practically a requirement for any high-ranking politician to attend at least one of his shows. And despite his left-leaning political allegiances, Democrats and Republicans alike seek him out as if he were New Jersey's very own Bono.
He sings paeans of working-class New Jersey so that he can have Bruce Springsteens millions. Just because you sing about the working poor doesn't make you one of them.

And then there's this:
And as someone who sings about his "plastic dashboard Jesus" and performs at concerts to fight global warming, his appeal is broad.

[...]

The two were on a flight to Maryland for a day of horse racing at the Pimlico race course with some friends when someone asked them to compare occupations. "He said, 'Mr. President, which is better, your job or Jon's?' I said, 'I know the answer to that. Mine, because I get to keep the airplane and the house.' "
Hmmm...fighting global warming while bragging about owning airplanes -- there seems to be a disconnect there.

(via)