A Presidential Candidate Who Could Bring Us All Together
An insider at No Labels, a US political organization founded with the mission of supporting centrism and bipartisanship that would appeal to a “commonsense majority,” shared an interesting finding with the New York Times this week. The group has done polling showing that 60% of Americans say they would vote for a hypothetical moderate candidate who is not named Trump or Biden.
That got me thinking: if you were drawing up an ideal presidential candidate to jump into the pending 2024 slimefest at the last minute, what would you look for?
Probably someone with huge name recognition, a ridiculously high “Q” rating (crazy high positives, absurdly low negatives), a stable marriage, and no problematic children. If you were getting greedy, you would also want someone who has a compelling underdog story, has created jobs, and is able to appeal to red and blue, rural and urban voters. The ideal candidate would not have obvious ties to either political party or be a Washington “insider.” And they would have a deep, visceral commitment to healing the nation.
In other words, Dolly Parton.
That this is the only name I can come up with is some sort of commentary on how impossible our politics are these days. And truth be told, I don’t think Dolly 2024 would work in the end. For one thing, she isn’t interested. Second, admiring someone doesn’t always mean we would vote for them. Third, for this particular job, I think experience actually does matter. And finally, with the stakes shaping up to be democracy vs. autocracy, I’m just not ready to take the chance.
But it’s actually not so hard to make a plausible argument for her. Run with me as I try to respond to your potential objections to the phenomenon we all know as just “Dolly”:
A not-so-crazy idea? (photo courtesy Library of Congress)
She’s too old: Really?
OK, but she’s past her prime/wrong generation: We are in the middle of yet another Dolly moment. Her new single “Rockstar” debuted at #3 this week on Billboard, just behind songs by Drake and Taylor Swift, and ahead of SZA, ENHYPHEN and three other Taylor Swift songs. She has a new book (Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones), a new album of rock and roll songs (mostly duet covers that somehow span both politics and generations -- Paul McCartney, Miley Cyrus, Kid Rock, Lizzo, etc.), a new podcast on Apple music (“What Would Dolly Do?) and 5.4 million followers on Twitter (now X). And did you see her halftime show at the Thanksgiving Cowboys-Commanders game?
Oh come on: she’s a cosmetically-altered cartoon: You may or may not like them, but Dolly totally owns her rhinestones, nails, wigs, heels and, uh, everything else. I don’t know if she spray tans, but if she did she’d cop to that too. None of her artifice comes off as inauthentic to me – she is who she is. And none of it has stopped her from becoming a respected songwriter, a patriotic icon, a cultural ambassador of the South, a generous global philanthropist and a savvy businesswoman.
She’s a multimillionaire/superstar/out of touch – we need someone who ‘gets” us: Dolly’s net worth is estimated at about $500 million, but she made every cent of it on her own after growing up dirt poor in rural Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children. And she has always stayed close to her roots — witness the work of her phenomenal literacy charity, which has now given away more than 200 million books worldwide, and her creation of Dollywood, which employs 4,000 people in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. During the early days of COVID, she sent $1 million to Moderna to speed up development of a cure.
She has a better outsider story than Trump; a better underdog story than Biden.
She’s hopelessly naïve/not very smart/Washington would eat her alive: I’m not so sure. Underestimate Dolly at your own peril: her record (and records) speak for themselves. The entertainment industry is at least as slimy as politics can be, and she fought her way to the top. When she was called out for a cringy, tone-deaf show at Dollywood called “Dolly’s Dixie Stampede” – she responded quickly to change the name and the content. She answers tricky questions with what one writer describes as the skill of a “black belt interviewee.” She manages in her songs to be both inspirational and ambiguous (When the guards gave him DJ control one day, Nelson Mandela famously chose Dolly’s “Jolene” to play over the loudspeakers in Robben Island prison. He and his fellow prisoners saw it as an anthem about lost freedom; guards heard it as a cautionary tale about a changing regime; more recently it has been interpreted as a lesbian love ballad; country music fans saw it as a classic “other woman” song).
She avoids taking stands on controversial issues as a business calculation: Well maybe. Dolly has very intentionally avoided commenting on presidential politics, abortion and gun rights, and has shunned the term “women’s lib.” But over the course of 3000 songs (her estimate) and a 57-year career, she has written about a wide range of tough issues facing the nation: suicide, alcoholism, homelessness, deportation of immigrants. She has stood up for unions and equal pay for women. She has called out the Christian right (on the podcast “Dolly Parton’s America” she said, ”I hate Christians who are so judgmental – they forget about ‘judge not less you be judged’”) and stood up for the rights of gays and transsexuals. Why has she been silent on other issues? I think it has less to do with shoring up her earnings and more to do with sending her core message of healing and mutual concern (from one of her pandemic songs: “Let’s open up our hearts/And let the whole world in/Let’s try to make amends/ When life is good again”).
Of course during a presidential campaign she would be forced to share more specific views on more critical issues, and I think she would. Here’s a hint:
““I have a great sense of timing…when the time is right I will say my piece.””
2028 dream ticket?
When will the time be “right”? Impatient as I am for more unifying figures in politics (see this piece), personally I hope it is not in 2024 as a presidential candidate. But even from the sidelines, think how many people would be influenced by Dolly when she spoke out. And…what the heck, how about Dolly 2028? Sure, she’ll be 81 by then, but 81 is apparently the new 61, and she is showing no signs of slowing down. If people are hesitant, she could reassure them by picking a young vice president. Taylor Swift will officially be old enough by then…
— Leslie
““World on Fire,” 2023
Now I ain’t one for speaking out much/But that don’t mean I don’t stay in touch/Everybody’s trippin’ over this or that/What we gonna do when we all fall flat?...
Don’t get me started on politics
Now how are we to live in a world like this?
Greedy politicians, present and past
They wouldn’t know the truth if it bit ‘em in the ass...
How do we heal this great divide?/Do we care enough to try?...
Oh, can we rise above?/Can’t we show some love?...
Do we just give up/Or make a change?/We know all too well/We’ve all been through hell/Time to break the spell/In Heaven’s name.”
References:
Background on No Labels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Labels
No Labels internal polling, backing by Trump supporters: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/opinion/no-labels-trump-biden-2024.html
More on Q ratings here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Score
Dolly’s literacy charity, Imagination Library: https://imaginationlibrary.com
A review of Dolly’s new album (it debuted this spring at #1, her first #1 album): https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/arts/music/amplifier-newsletter-dolly-parton.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Billboard Top 200: https://www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-200/
Dolly halftime show Thanksgiving 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFE6SNXoZuE
A really nice article on Dolly’s crossover appeal: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/arts/music/dolly-parton.html
The Dolly/Mandela connection: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2019/12/11/can-dolly-parton-save-the-country/
Jolene as a lesbian ballad: https://usso.uk/2022/01/now-youre-the-only-one-for-me-jolene-queer-reading-and-forging-community-in-country-music/
Dolly as “black belt interviewee”: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20201204-how-dolly-parton-became-the-worlds-best-loved-celebrity
A story on the now-completely-revamped Stampede show at Dollywood: https://slate.com/culture/2017/08/visiting-dolly-partons-dinner-show-dixie-stampede.html
Dolly’s 2009 University of Tennessee commencement speech: https://whatrocks.github.io/commencement-db/2009-dolly-parton-university-of-tennessee/
A link to the great “Dolly Parton’s America” podcast from 2019: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dolly-partons-america