Tonight is the Vice Presidential Debate. Since one of its two participants is a virulent, lemon-faced homophobe who thought it was a good idea to hitch his political wagon to Donald J. Trump, it's a bit of an open-and-shut case for me. But even if it weren't—even if the race were as close inside my head as it somehow is in the country at large—Tim Kaine would have the edge for one simple reason.

Tim Kaine has said publicly that Let It Be by the Replacements is one of his favorite albums. A man who has strong opinions on "Sixteen Blue" could soon be the second-most powerful person in America. This election season never ceases to surprise.

Granted, like anything any politician says, this could be nothing but pandering. But I doubt it. First off, he made this statement during an interview on an R&B radio station in Virginia, an area and a format where few would be swayed by his choice. And the Replacements' following album was their major-label debut, sold many more copies, and is actually titled Tim. (Plus, who would any of this even be a pander to, besides me and eight of my friends?) By choosing Let It Be, Tim Kaine is telling the world his heart is pure.

Getty Images

Here's why this matters: a Replacements fan understands the concerns of the American middle class. The Replacements spent their too-brief career being the truth behind the stories America likes to tell itself about itself. Upward social mobility is possible here, but too often we're held in place by forces beyond our control: our class, our education, our culture. As Bob Mehr's gorgeous Replacements biography demonstrates (over and over, in heartbreaking ways that will make you consider pouring all of your alcohol down the drain), the boys were programmed to fail from the beginning. Paul Westerberg started his career as a janitor, and, at least for a while, seemed determined to end it that way.

A Replacements fan understands the concerns of the American middle class.

Let It Be's triumphant "We're Comin' Out" tells you the band has "one more time to do it all wrong, one more night to get it half right," and the rest of their career lived out that worldview. The Replacements were poised after Tim and Pleased to Meet Me to be the biggest indie band in America, but they chose instead to drink and fight and cede their position to the much more cerebral R.E.M. They got themselves on Saturday Night Live, and got themselves banned for life immediately thereafter. They had a shot, and they threw it. One cannot take public service seriously without engaging the psychology behind our country's self-destructive streak, and the story of the Replacements gives you a good, hard look at it.

Behind the booze and the noise, Let It Be contains wisdom and truth. "Androgynous" showed a more nuanced understanding of gender and sexuality in 1984 than Mike Pence has been able to muster in 2016.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

There has never been a more concentrated, more compassionate dose of teen angst than "Sixteen Blue."

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Nor a more satisfying primal scream than "Unsatisfied."

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

This might be cheating, because it's on Tim, but the line, "I used to live at home, now I stay at the house," from "Here Comes a Regular" is the most succinct, heartbreaking insight into lower-class economic insecurity ever recorded.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Contrast all of this with Mike Pence, whose Facebook page lists his favorite music as: "Contemporary Christian, Country, Classical, and anything by Earth Wind and Fire," the last of which he probably only likes because their name reminds him of the apocalypse. Mike Pence is a guy who has had a Jimmy Buffett greatest hits compilation in the CD player of his Ford F-150 for 11 years and always skips past "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw." Mike Pence really looks forward to doing the "ba-ba-baaaa" part in "Sweet Caroline." Mike Pence and his taste in music are wrong for America.

To love the Replacements is to love our country for what it is, to understand both the hope and the hopelessness at its heart. I trust a Replacements fan, and so should you.

Really, I'm just pointing this out in the hopes that maybe someone will hear "I Will Dare" for the first time today, and that it will change their life the way it did mine and Tim Kaine's.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Download Let It Be today. The 'Mats could probably use the extra buck.

Dave Holmes Editor-at-Large Dave Holmes is Esquire's L.A.-based editor-at-large.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io