WASHINGTON — Bruce Springsteen, the poetic rocker whose lyrics have chronicled the hardships of working-class Americans in struggling factory towns, on Wednesday endorsed Barack Obama for president.
The support that the music star known as "the Boss" threw behind the Illinois senator was a highlight of a relatively quiet day on the campaign trail, as Obama and rival Hillary Rodham Clinton prepared for Wednesday night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia.
Springsteen broke the news in a letter posted on his website. Obama, he said, "has the depth, the reflectiveness and the resilience to be our next president."
Without mentioning Clinton, Springsteen took issue with Obama critics who have fanned recent flaps over Obama's comments about "bitter" small-town Americans and his long relationship with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
"Critics have tried to diminish Sen. Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships," Springsteen said. "While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision . . . often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues."
With less than a week to go before Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, where the votes of blue-collar Democrats could be pivotal, New Jersey-bred Springsteen urged voters to consider "the terrible damage done over the past eight years" of the Bush administration, and to undertake "a great American reclamation project."
Springsteen, 58, backed Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry in 2004, and played concerts in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in a get-out-the-vote effort.
His stardom has continued since the 1970s, with songs such as "Born to Run," "Born in the U.S.A." and "Factory," in which he reflected on workers who, leaving the plant at the end of the day, "walk through these gates with death in their eyes."
Obama also received the endorsement Wednesday of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the largest newspaper in western Pennsylvania.
In addition, he won support from three superdelegates: Democratic Reps. David E. Price and Melvin Watt of North Carolina, and Andre Carson of Indiana. That followed Clinton's pickup on Tuesday of superdelegate Rep. Jackie Speier, from the San Francisco area, who this month replaced the late Tom Lantos in Congress.
