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The Good Conservative
On the Trail of Springsteen and Reagan
September 19, 1984, was a typical day on the campaign trail for Ronald Reagan. The president spent the morning in the Democratic stronghold of Waterbury, Connecticut. There, as elsewhere, he read prepared remarks, but added some local color—in this case, invoking the spirit of John F. Kennedy, who had visited Waterbury in 1960. "Even though it was the fall, it seemed like springtime, those days. I see our country today and I think it is springtime for America once again," he told the crowd. "And I think John Kennedy would be proud of you and the things you believe in." Reagan, of course, had supported Richard Nixon in that election.
The president then proceeded to the affluent suburban town of Hammonton, New Jersey, in the southern part of the state. There, he praised Italian-American voters. "You are what America is all about," he told them. "You didn't come here seeking streets paved with gold. You didn't come here asking for welfare or special treatment." And as in Waterbury, Reagan also cited a local favorite. "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside our hearts. It rests in the message of hope so many young people admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about."
Actually, the Reagan camp had hoped to have Springsteen by the President's side in Hammonton. Though attempts to recruit rock stars Billy Joel and John Cougar Mellencamp failed, Michael Jackson had recently appeared with Reagan at the White House in an anti-drunk-driving campaign. And six days earlier, after attending a Springsteen concert,conservative columnist George Will had written a glowing review that echoed dominant Republican campaign themes. "I have not got a clue about Springsteen's politics, if any," Will wrote, "but flags get waved at his concerts while he sings songs about hard times. He is no whiner, and the recitation of closed factories and other problems always seems punctuated by a grand, cheerful, affirmation: 'Born in the U.S.A.!'"
The office of presidential handler Michael Deaver contacted Springsteen's promoter, who relayed the request to appear with Reagan. Springsteen's agent declined on behalf of his client, saying he was unavailable for any outside appearances during his tour. Springsteen's people thought that was the end of the matter—until Reagan invoked Springsteen anyway. The President's press aide could not immediately tell reporters what Reagan's favorite Springsteen song was, although the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner reported an aide as saying that Reagan listened to Springsteen's records all the time.
It's not hard to see why Reagan's campaign regarded Springsteen as a useful political asset. Since 1972, when he released his first album, Springsteen had built a steadily growing audience that peaked with the release of Born in the U.S.A. in June of 1984. The album sold 20 million copies in the United States and 10 million more abroad, making him a superstar. But much of Springsteen's appeal stemmed from a refusal to act like one. His legendary concerts, for example, were extraordinary in their length and in Springsteen's desire to give his fans more than mere money could buy. Such generosity was also evident in his songs, which depicted the hopes and fears of the ethnic working class from which he emerged with a clarity and empathy that had appealingly moral overtones.
This ethnic working-class constituency was the keystone of Reagan's electoral coalition, the bloc that turned the Republicans into the nation's governing party in the 1980s. So the attempt to appropriate Springsteen's appeal was more than routine political window dressing; it reflected a broader strategy that had precipitated a major political realignment. Among other tactics, this strategy involved stoking the resentments of working-class whites uneasy about black gains since the Civil Rights movement, and capitalizing on the ill will generated by white liberals who had regarded the working class with suspicion, if not outright hostility, since the sixties. This strategy also involved championing religious and patriotic causes the American left had largely abandoned in the wake of the Vietnam War.
Springsteen's good-guy image and unabashed patriotism, then, seemed to make him a perfect fit for the Reaganites. Indeed, given the extent to which the Republican Party had appropriated God and Country by 1984, it seemed possible to fit some of the best ideas and traditions of American history under a GOP banner (George Will's column on Springsteen is a case study of this process in action). As far as they were concerned, Springsteen was a conservative Republican that fall.
Many people, even those with only a passing familiarity with Springsteen's music, regarded this effort to capture Springsteeen as, at best, misguided. More committed fans reacted with outrage. Springsteen's biographer Dave Marsh later wrote that Will's column "was such a perversion of what Springsteen was trying to communicate that it constituted an obscenity." Few in the years since would have reason to disagree.
In a very real way, however, both Will and Reagan were right: Springsteen really was, and is, a conservative as well as a republican. But he's not a conservative republican (lowercase "c" and "r") in the Reagan sense of the term. Rather, he's the conservator of an older, more resonant republicanism that shaped and built a nation.
