It’s not like Bruce Springsteen’s now-official backing of Barack Obama was any surprise, what with his plan to join Bill Clinton in hosting a rally for the president in Ohio Thursday. But the Boss, who had previously planned to stay out of this election, hadn’t actually gotten around to endorsing the commander in chief until Wednesday. Now that he has, he’d like to help explain some of the circumstances around Obama’s mixed first term: “Due to the economic chaos the previous administration left him with, and the extraordinary intensity of the opposition, it turned into a really rough ride.” Springsteen’s endorsement letter goes on to hit a lot of Obama talking points (killing Bin Laden, saving the auto industry, getting out of Iraq), but he’s much more poetic where Bill Clinton was all about the data: “We’re still living through very hard times but justice, equality and real freedom are not always a tide rushing in. They are more often a slow march, inch by inch, day after long day,” Springsteen wrote.
