Boss backs Obama

Don't be surprised if Bruce Springsteen songs start opening and closing Barack Obama's campaign rallies.

The Boss is endorsing Obama for president, telling fans today on his website, "I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest."

The legendary rocker says that Obama "speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years."

Springsteen has generally supported liberal Democrats and objected when President Ronald Reagan used his "Born in the USA" as a theme song for his 1984 reelection campaign. He and his E Street Band took part in the "Vote or Change" tour, a coalition of musicians opposed to the re-election of President Bush in 2004. He endorsed Senator John F. Kerry, who used Springsteen's "No Surrender" during rallies.

Obama, Springsteen says, is the best candidate to "lead us into the 21st century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans."

Clinton's camp responded with her latest endorsement from the blue-collar workers who often show up in Springsteen's songs.

The Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association, which represents about 45,000 plasterers and cement masons in the construction industry in North America, announced its support for Clinton. Her campaign said she has endorsements from more than a dozen unions representing about 6 million working families nationwide,

“We need a leader with Hillary Clinton’s ability to turn around the economy and rebuild the middle class,” the union's president, Pat Finley, said in a statement provided by the Clinton campaign. “She has a clear record fighting for working families, and is the strongest candidate to go toe-to-toe with John McCain in November.”