Tomorrow is Election Day in the United States. President Barack Obama is running for reelection. Mitt Romney is his Republican opponent.
Rocker Bruce Springsteen is campaigning for President Obama. He also campaigned for Obama in 2008.
Today I read that Springsteen accompanied Obama to all his last-minute campaign rallies on Air Force One, the President of the United States’ official aircraft. I laughed because it reminded me of an illustration I did for Crawdaddy! Magazine back in 2009. It was for a story on the top 5 developments in music (with an emphasis on rock music) during 2000-2010, the first decade of the 21st century.
Here’s the final.
What were these Top 5 developments? According to the story’s author, they were:
1. musicians volunteering to raise money for the victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks
2. musicians’ embrace of Twitter to communicate directly with their fans
3. the development of internet radio, Pandora being one such example
4. the .mp3 file, and the threat posed to the music industry by unauthorized downloads
5. rock musicians’ embrace of then candidate Obama during the 2008 campaign
The article singled out Springsteen as a fervent Obama supporter, disposed to use his musical celebrity to help deliver the youth vote to Obama in the 2008 election. Here’s a detail image of Springsteen pledging his support, which may help explain why he got to ride around with the President on Air Force One today.
What do you think? Do rock musicians have special insight into policy issues? Would you vote for someone just because that person was endorsed by a celebrity? Hope you’ll leave a comment.
