Are y'all sick to death of Springsteen and Vote for Change?

Well, I'll try to make this my last entry on the subject. Time has an article about the tour and what the artists are hoping to accomplish. Rolling Stone interviewed Bruce about why he's entering the political arena for the first time in his 30+ year career. And there's quite a lively debate about whether he should even be doing this on the discussion page at brucespringsteen.net. As of this writing, the thread is 119 pages long, at 20 posts per page.

I've read the interviews (though not the thread...I had other stuff to do today!) and I'm purring inside at the ideas expressed:

• The artist as a voice, just a voice.
• Responsibility to your fans and to your ideals.
• The limits of what the musicians can do, but how they felt it was so necessary to do it anyway.

My old boss in Columbus is also a huge Springsteen fan. We only talk any more when there's a Springsteen concert coming up, or when we've read a review that makes us think "Oh, my heck." (Example: Bruce played Incident on 57th St. in Philadelphia during the reunion tour in '99/2000; the first time he'd played that song in 20 years.) But I haven't spoken or written to him about this tour at all, because...well, because he's such a freakin' Republican, somewhat to the right of Orrin Hatch, and I don't think it would be a pleasant conversation. I don't like political discussion, really; there's just entirely too much vitriol.

I may write something more Monday night, after the broadcast on the Sundance Channel. But now I'll give it a rest.