Big money riding on the Boss to make a difference

By RUPERT CORNWELL

In a close-run election, could a bunch of music stars be the difference between victory and defeat for John Kerry? Just possibly, if the bunch goes under the collective name of Vote for Change, and one of the rock stars is Bruce Springsteen.

This week, in what is surely the most ambitious venture of its kind, almost two dozen artists, led by Springsteen, unveiled plans for multi-state tours at the very height of the election season to garner support for the Democrats and whip up opposition to President George W. Bush.

There have been many past efforts by entertainers to influence United States presidential elections, but few with the star wattage of this one, and none, surely, as focused and carefully organised.

In the first week of October, as the political campaign moves into top gear, 16 acts grouped into six separate shows will perform in nine states. This musical itinerary will follow the candidates through the election's most crucial battlefields: Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin, culminating in Florida, the most crucial of them all, won by Bush by just 537 votes - and where on October 8, simultaneous Vote for Change shows will be staged in six Florida cities.

The list of participants in the Vote for Change tour is impressive: among them REM, one of the biggest bands of the early 1990s, the songwriter and singer Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam and the Dixie Chicks, whose lead singer Natalie Maines earned damnation among fans when, on the eve of last year's invasion of Iraq, she said she was ashamed that Bush came from Texas.

To the casual observer, the anti-Bush rally might seem odd. After all, did not the Reagan campaign seek to co-opt Springsteen's mega-hit Born in the USA as a patriotic anthem for the Republicans during the 1984 election campaign? And does not Springsteen - hard-edged, blue denim, blue-collar rocker - seem at first glance an archetypal "Reagan Democrat" of that era.

Look a little closer, however, and it makes perfect sense. Born in the USA is no sugary paean to the Land of the Free, but the bitter outburst of a Vietnam War veteran forgotten by an ungrateful country.

At the very least, a Springsteen tour guarantees publicity for the Democrats. Given that one recent 10-day tour by the Boss netted US$38 million ($59 million), it will be also a powerful source of funds. The money, of course, cannot go to the Kerry campaign, already committed to the US$75 million spending ceiling between convention and election day allowed by federal campaign finance rules. But the party will benefit hugely.

The tour can only raise the election profile, underscoring the Democrats' contention that the race is so close and the stakes so high no one can afford not to vote - a sobering thought that for all the hullabaloo surrounding US elections, turnout rarely exceeds 55 per cent, the lowest of any advanced democracy.

If Springsteen and his allies have their way, this time enough Democrat sympathisers will become Democrat voters to evict Bush from the White House.

- INDEPENDENT