I find it interesting that so many people are talking about Democrats in Nashville suddenly having the "courage" to admit that they're Democrats. Why should it take courage to admit membership in America's oldest existing political party? Many people consider the modern Democratic Party's first president to be Davidson County's own Andrew Jackson, 176 years ago. 

To hear some people tell it, you'd think we were saying we're in the Nazi Party or the Communist Party. This demonization of Democrats is right-wing propaganda that goes way beyond the sphere of conservative talk radio. Maybe it did take a little courage for us to "come out," but if that's so, then that just proves that we were long overdue. We have to make up our minds that we absolutely will not let our enemies get away with lying about us, and the best way to start is for us to stop believing those lies ourselves.

Just as Republican PR has given birth to the notion that it is now unSouthern to be a Democrat, they have also politicized OUR MUSIC. In a recent article, journalist Beverly Keel wrote that one might listen to country radio these days and get the impression that they were hearing the music of the Republican Party. I found that upsetting because I knew she was telling the truth. I won't open up that can of worms, the politicization of country music, but anyone who saw the crowd at the Belcourt Cinema on February 5 knows that the business end of country music in Nashville is NOT solidly Republican!

Country music is the music of everyday people. Why would we NOT belong to the party that sympathizes with the underdog? Country music is the music about families and mommas and babies. Why would we NOT belong to the party that cares about health care for seniors and children? Why would people in the music of wide open spaces and green green grass NOT be in the party that wants to protect God's green earth from the polluting global-warming big shots that the Bush administration loves and defers to?

We should make it our mission to convince the country music fan base that the Republicans care nothing about them except for their votes. Convince them that George W. Bush may talk "country" from his ranch in Crawford, but he's more himself when he's yukking it up with rich corporate types who don't give a damn about middle class folks. Point out to them what hunters in the West are already finding out, that this administration is so irresponsible with our environment that they're not just ruining the cities, they're destroying the countryside as well. When Republicans drape themselves in the flag, remind the country fans that Democrats like FDR and Harry Truman led us through World War II, that war hero JFK stood up to the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis, that most of the decorated war heroes in Congress are Democrats and that two of the candidates for this year's Democratic nomination were heroically injured in Vietnam. Show them that the party of their Southern granddaddies or their union member blue-collar daddies is the party that cares about them and the issues that affect their lives.

I hope an army of country legends, those who aren't playing the radio game but whose names are still known far and wide, will get out there, do commercials, do whatever it takes to get these poor and middle-class women and men and kids, the people who love our music, away from the party of the corporate giants. We love our country and we love our country music. I think being Democrats not only does not contradict that, I think it corroborates it. Let's shout it from the rooftops and help make a difference in 2004.

*Already inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Bobby Braddock is one of country music's most successful and prolific songwriters. Among his 35 Top 10 country singles are 13 No. 1 hits, including "Golden Ring," "D.I.V.O.R.C.E..," "He Stopped Loving Her Today," "Time Marches On," "Texas Tornado" and "I Wanna Talk About Me." Braddock's work as a producer includes Blake Shelton's "Austin," "Ol' Red" and "The Baby."