(This is part of an ongoing series rating presidential campaign songs, in rough chronological order. You can find all the previous entries here.)

When I saw that Thomas Jefferson's campaign song was titled "For Jefferson and Liberty," my first thought was that it was just a boring ripoff of John Adams's song, "Adams and Liberty." (People were pretty blasé about plagiarism back then, you understand.) But those fears were unfounded; it bears no relation to poor old John Adams. Which is not to say that "For Jefferson and Liberty" doesn't borrow from what has come before. In fact, it's just some new lyrics set to the tune of an old Irish jig called The Gobby-O. Here's video of The Gobby O:

It's a decent jig. It doesn't have the towering sense of importance that the songs for Washington and Adams did, but it was probably catchy as hell back in the day. The lyrics are full of that old-fashioned blood and thunder that would make Sarah Palin cream her jeans: "No lordling here with gorging jaws/Shall wring from industry its food/No fiery bigot's holy laws,/Lay waste our fields and streets in blood." You can't ask for much more than opposition to fiery bigots in a campaign ditty. And it culminates in a Bruckheimerian bellow of Biblican proportions: "Let foes to freedom dread the name/But should they touch the sacred tree/Twice fifty thousand swords would flame/For Jefferson and Liberty."

Fuck! Me! You can bet that Jimmy Carter's campaign song doesn't end with a hundred thousand flaming fucking swords. I think this is the best one yet; it combines an optimistic party tune with lyrics that don't dick around. What else do you want in a campaign song?

Lyrics: 9
Enthusiasm: 9
Infectiousness: 8.5
Total Score: 8.83