John McCain vs. Dennis Hopper?

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When it rains, it pours. It’s no secret that Hollywood isn’t exactly a Republican stronghold, so the GOP values every conservative celebrity vote it has in its back pocket. On the other hand, Hollywood is, well, a town that loves front-runners, so when things aren’t going good, you can expect celebrities to jump ship at the slightest provocation.

That just happened to Dennis Hopper. After having voted a straight GOP ticket for Bush (both father and son), not to mention costarring in ‘An American Carol,’ the current David Zucker right-wing comedy that mocks Michael Moore, Hopper has gone overboard, telling reporters in Paris that he’s voting for Barack Obama this time around. Even though he voted for George W. Bush--twice--Hopper blasted his administration for its many ‘lies,’ saying ‘I pray God, Barack Obama is elected.’

This is especially bad news, since Hopper is McCain’s demographic peer--the legendary star of ‘Easy Rider’ is actually three months older than McCain, having turned 72 in May. I guess if I were a die-hard conservative, I’d say, ‘It figures that Hopper would wait till he was in (ahem) France to deliver the bad news.’ Speaking of bad news, as we mentioned the other day, the McCain campaign has been running out of pop anthems to play at campaign rallies after a slew of performers--including the Foo Fighters, Van Halen and Jackson Browne--all complained that the McCain campaign had never gotten permission to use their music.

I asked readers for helpful suggestions for new songs the McCain campaign might play instead. And oh boy, did we get suggestions! I guess we have a lot of liberal readers, since most of the ideas were--shall we say--somewhat sarcastic. I’ve gone through the lengthy list to cull a few highlights. Which songs were my favorites? Keep reading:

The Top 10:

10) ‘Old Man’ by Neil Young (from Kitsinni)

9) ‘Dumb All Over’ by Frank Zappa (from Tim)

8) ‘Loser’ by Beck (from Joe Banna)

7) ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ by the Blue Oyster Cult (from Mavisdarling)

6) ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC (from Antonio in New York)

5) ‘I’m a Loser’ by the Beatles (from Jeff and about 100 other people)

4) ‘Born to Lose’ by Ray Charles (from Casey)

3) ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline (from Mavisdarling)

2) ‘Driving Nails in My Coffin’ by Hank Thompson (from StanleyMN)

And the No. 1 choice for the new John McCain theme song is:

‘(Turn Out the Lights) The Party’s Over’ by Willie Nelson (from Chris Plain).

If you have time, take a listen to Brian Unger’s NPR piece, ‘Can’t Stump the Music.’

Or watch one of our Top 10 songs: