Pols Rockin' Out -- On iPod or 8-track.

Navigation: Main page

Author: Bedard, PaulBenjamin, MatthewParker, Suzi

OK, so he's not the kind of guy we'd expect to see playing air guitar a la Tom Cruise in Risky Business, but that's not to take anything away from Deadhead Ken Mehlman. Yes, the same serious guy who is chairman of the Republican National Committee digs rock-and-roll. Just check out his brand new iPod. He's got a 20-gigabyte portable Apple and is filling it with a nearly complete collection of the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. Who knew? But that's not all. Included in the 700 songs he has already downloaded are some from the Beatles, the Doobie Brothers, the Allman Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Doors, the Stones, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and even Ray Charles. "Listening to good tunes while I work out and run," he tells us, "is a great escape, and I try to do it every day." Insiders say he's a big downloader, using Apple's iTunes and keeping his iPod plugged in at work as he checks off items on his very long political to-do list.

Two blocks away on Capitol Hill, at Democratic Party HQ, Chairman Howard Dean isn't into iPods, but he's not lost musically, preferring Willie Nelson, the Beatles, Sheryl Crow, even rapper Wyclef Jean, an activist whose song "If I Was President" could be a Dean theme song. Dean's a Dead guy, too. He stays musically current thanks to all the CDs his kids leave in the car, though an aide concedes, "It's hard to get the newer artists on 8-track."

PHOTO (COLOR)

~~~~~~~~

By Paul Bedard

With Matthew Benjamin and Suzi Parker