How Would John Lennon Vote?

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Coming of age in the 60s I sometimes wonder how some of the cultural icons of the time—especially my favorite musicians, actors, and entertainers—would relate to events taking place today. One such icon (and role model) for me as a teenager was John Lennon—the “thinking Beatle” —who broke rank with his mates to protest a war, and eventually left the band to pursue his own commitments, political and otherwise. With the US again involved in a far-flung war and another divisive presidential campaign I’ve been asking myself lately, “How would John vote?” After all, Lennon had finally become a US citizenship a few years before his death in 1980. (The fact that Lennon was able to gain citizenship was an amazing story in its own right, given the comical attempts years earlier by the Nixon administration, FBI, CIa, and INS to get him deported because of the apparently grave threat he posed to the US government!)

I admit the following is a highly speculative exercise, reflecting my own biases as I try to predict the actions of such a quixotic and paradoxical figure as John Lennon.  But just for the fun of it, let’s “imagine” how Lennon would assess these presidential candidates, starting with the three “electable” ones still running national campaigns.

John McCain?

Lennon would probably appreciate John McCain’s contrariness and outspokenness—qualities JWL would certainly identify with. My guess is he would also have cheered on McCain’s attempts in 2000 to challenge George Bush and the “agents of intolerance” (as he described them) of the Religious Right—given Lennon’s disdain of religiosity, especially the self-righteous variety. Yet he would have an issue with McCain’s recent pirouettes on many socially moderate views he held in the past, from gay marriage to immigration, which Lennon would likely support. But McCain’s continued support for the Iraq War would be the deal-breaker for the “Give Peace a Chance” musician. From his Bealtemania days when Lennon surprised the world at a Fab Four press conference in 1966 with his opposition to Vietnam (“War is wrong” ) to the time he was gunned down 14 years later, Lennon remained an opponent of war as foreign policy, if not a full-fledged pacifist.

Hillary?

Lennon would likely applaud a variety of Hillary Clinton’s positions, from her universal health care stance to her sometimes-ridiculed “it-takes-a-village” approach to education, which were entirely consistent with Lennon’s liberal worldview. One wild card: how would the 8-year Bill Clinton presidency have played in John’s thinking? How he viewed that presidency (and I suspect he would have had mixed feelings about it) might have carried over to Senator Clinton’s cause, one way or the other. But Clinton’s vote to authorize the use of force against Iraq would certainly have diminished Lennon’s enthusiasm for her candidacy, not to mention her other tilt-to-the-right maneuvers (including her introduction of a bill to make flag-burning a crime).

Obama?

Lennon would presumably find much to admire about Barack Obama’s views as well—many of which overlap Senator Clinton’s, from health care accessibility to green energy investment—along with an appreciation of Senator Obama’s global perspective and eloquent optimism. But Obama’s stance against the Iraq war from the beginning would be the clincher for Lennon. For that reason alone I believe Lennon would support Barack Obama for US President.

A Republican Maybe?

That being said, Lennon would undoubtedly lament Dennis Kucinich’s withdrawal, the most outspoken peace advocate of the original Democratic candidates and who lined up closest to Lennon’s 1970’s values.  Of the two other major party candidates who are technically still in the race, Republicans alan Keyes and Ron Paul, I believe Lennon would have resonated with some aspects of the latter’s libertarian philosophy and aversion to an interventionist foreign policy. I could imagine John Lennon’s amusement at Ron Paul’s controversial statement on Meet the Press, quoting Sinclair Lewis: “When fascism comes to america it will be draped in a flag, carrying a cross.” (Of course Lennon was a spiritual seeker, with great respect for Jesus’s message, but Lennon shared the concern of many of us that the delivery systems for that message have distorted it over time.)

I admit to an assumption that opposition to the Iraq war would be the dominant criterion in John Lennon’s presidential choice in 2008. But who really knows how his values would have developed had he lived another twenty-seven years and four months? and would he even vote? after all, the self-described “dreamer” questioned the value of nation states to begin with—and certainly the american dream itself. Yet we shouldn’t forget how desparetely he wanted to become a US citizen. He was, in that sense, the quintessential american immigrant.

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