Merle Haggard Endorses Hillary Clinton

Merle Haggard the legendary 70 year old country singer, the Okie from Muskogee, has endorsed Hillary Clinton to be our next President.

I first heard about this when I was driving to my house in Lindenhurst, IL. I turned on the car radio and started listening to the local public radio station.

I tuned in right in the middle of a live phone interview with the great singer/songwriter. The mind-blowing fact quickly established was that it was indeed true that Merle had come out and endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. Not only that, he had written a song called Hillary.

If you have followed the life and career of Merle Haggard at all you know that his politics have changed dramatically over the years. Although he started out as a New Deal Democrat, his songs The Fightin' Side of Me and Okie from Muskogee were an open declaration of his change to conservative politics back in the '60s and 70s.

He did not like the folks protesting the Vietnam War and he made his feelings very clear in his songs. He was one of the leaders of the charge to conservatism back in those years.

Merle Haggard is known for his honesty and integrity and when his opinions have changed, he has never been shy about telling us about them, both in song and when he is given an opportunity to talk. You gotta respect the man for that!

He has been the living definition of authenticity for many years. Known as the poet of the working man, he is beloved by many for keepin' it real. So perhaps we should not be surprised when one of his current songs has the lyrics, "Let's get out of Iraq/And get back on track"

In an October interview in the Washington Post, he said:

"I predicted 15 years ago that Hillary would be president of the United States. Bill Clinton is still the number one diplomat and Democrat in the world, and we get him as a package deal. Anybody with the least bit of intelligence is going to say, "Maybe we need some diplomacy." It's more about him than it is about her."

Here are some of the lyrics to the song Hillary: