‘Sopranos’ theme in political ad brings complaint

With the election season pace picking up, music behind a political video message raised eyebrows and yielded grumbles in Washington state, notes Grumpy Editor.

Reason?

The now well-recognized melody in the ad was the theme from The Sopranos, the popular HBO series about a mob family in New Jersey.  The series is being re-run on A&E.

And the target of the message, produced by Democrats, happened to be Dino Rossi, Italian-American Republican gubernatorial candidate who is challenging incumbent Gov. Christine Gregoire.

The Italian Club of Seattle complained that the ad was “racist” and “beyond offensive.”  It declared the video aimed to link Rossi “to Italian-American criminals through the use of the theme song to The Sopranos.”

A Washington State Democratic Central Committee spokesman said it didn’t mean to link Rossi to the mafia or organized crime, pointing out The Sopranos theme is “a catchy song.”

Republican State party chairman Luke Esser said the video is “offensive to every Italian-American in this state and should not be tolerated.”

State Democrats said they will remove the video containing the catchy song from the long-running TV series but continue with the same message while using a different (undisclosed) tune.