An ‘Idol’ election?
President George W. Bush once said, “I know the democratic spirit is alive in our country because there was a big vote recently — the new American Idol got about 55 million votes.”
So when we recently spoke with Bo Bice, the runner-up in “Idol”’s fourth season, we had to ask: Is there anything to all these comparisons between American elections and “American Idol”?
“I don’t mean to slight ‘Idol’, but I think the comparison might be a little bit off base,” Bice said with a laugh. “But this election is like ‘Idol’ in that it’s a very in your face, media driven, expensive election.”
Bice is set to perform Saturday at the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, as part of a tribute to the Beatles classic, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which was released 40 years ago.
But just because Bice is near D.C., doesn’t mean that he’s ready to spill the beans on his candidate of choice this November (although it’s not hard to guess).
“I’ve got a pretty good sense of how I’m going to vote,” Bice told Yeas & Nays. “But I’m not really going to say. And I’m not ready to endorse either. I’m going to make ‘em earn my vote!” Still: “I’m kind of a conservative guy. I know that’s ironic to be that way in the entertainment industry, but some of my values are just more conservative values. But I’m also not a Republican or a Democrat. I just try to be open minded enough to say it’s going to take a lot more than either of those parties to change America. We need to see different colors in the rainbow than just blue and red.”
What are some of Bice’s most important issues? “I hate a flip-flopper.” And: “I think we need to build more jobs and more of an infrastructure so that our people and my kids can rely on solid jobs no matter what they want to do. And we need to take care of gas prices.”
In the end, the Alabama rocker summed up his political philosophy rather succinctly: “Politics is politics, man.”
