Whatever happened to "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"?

I guess she thinks Celine Dion will be as helpful to her as it was James Cameron.

That's right, Hillary Clinton -- junior senator from New York and erstwhile contender for the Democratic presidential nomination -- ended her quest for a campaign song today.

The lucky song's name? "You and I." Advance to the 49-second mark to see one of the candidates for Leader of the Free World bobbing and swaying to what I believe is an excerpt from the song.



All of this was part of the Web 2.0-steeped efforts to motivate her digital base.

Color me unimpressed. First, it doesn't seem as though the process of gathering netizen input and making a decision on the song was organic as the video would suggest. Second, who picks Celine Dion for a campaign song?

But Sen. Clinton is only the latest in a line of lame campaign song choices:

- The 2004 presidential campaign saw incumbent President Bush select country outfit Brooks and Dunn for a pseudo-stirring, patriotic anthem, "Only in America." Sen. John Kerry chose a decent Boss tune ("No Surrender"), but by associating it with his languishing campaign did it a disservice, so I label it a flop.

-- Bush the 43rd co-opted Tom Petty (for shame) and Van Hagar in 2000, along with *shudder* Billy Ray Cyrus. Al Gore, winner of the popular vote, did the hippest thing since inventing the Internet by picking BTO's "You Ain't See Nothing Yet."

-- Kansas native Bob Dole bastardized Sam and Dave's "Soul Man" in his failed attempt to unseat Bill Clinton in 1996.

-- The Gipper used Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," thinking the ode to America's disaffected Vietnam veterans would be perfect for Reagan/Bush 1984. The Boss later asked the campaign to not use the song furthermore. At the same time, one of the worst campaigns known to man -- Mondale in 1984 -- was blaring Neil Diamond's "Coming To America" (I think Tom Tancredo could win my vote based on irony if he picked this as his campaign song).

Whatever happened to "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"?

UPDATE: Sen. Clinton has put herself into the allusionary shoes of fictional sociopath Tony Soprano in a parody of "The Sopranos" finale. I'm starting to think Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" would have made a better campaign song than anything in the discography of Celine Dion. Here's the video: