That Toby Keith is a Democrat is not news. He was pretty open about it when he was such a bastard during the whole Dixie Chicks insanity a few years back. But the fact that he's now said openly that he supports Barack Obama? Shit, in country music circles, that's pretty close to announcing that he's gay. The Obama campaign needs to jump on this - now.
If you don't see what's so fuckin' important about some singer's endorsement, you don't understand country music fans. We're talking a guy who has cultivated a bad-ass rural American image, whose tour is called "Biggest and Baddest," who's played at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan and over at bases in Iraq, whose fans call themselves the "Warriors," who was voted the sexiest man in country music just this past month. Motherfucker sings songs advertising Ford trucks, fer chrissake.
So, now, when Keith sings to soldiers and large crowds of white people, "You’ll be sorry that you messed with/ The U.S. of A./ Cause we'll put a boot in your ass/ It's the American way," he thinks Barack Obama should be wearing that boot. When he sings, as he does in "America Soldier" in the voice of that soldier, "Beside my brothers and my sisters I will proudly take a stand,/When liberty's in jeopardy I will always do what's right,/ I'm out here on the front lines, so sleep in peace tonight," he trusts Barack Obama to decide when to place those soldiers in jeopardy. And when he sings, as he does in "Beer for my Horses," the song that mentions lynching outlaws, "We'll raise up our glasses against evil forces," he wants to toast with Obama.
Yeah, Keith is still a fucker in many ways, but politics is about taking advantage of opportunities. And if you want to counter the bullshit image of Barack Obama as an elitist, weak, effete youngster, then you could do far worse than to get the muscular dude in the cowboy hat out there for you.
(Picture from here.)
