With the Texas primaries coming up on Tuesday, Kris Kristofferson, a Texas native, is giving his endorsement to the presidential candidate Barack Obama, D-IL.

"I believe in Barack Obama like I believed in the Kennedys," Kristofferson said in a statement. "In the months before his death, John Kennedy pointed out that while we could not agree on their choice of government, there was much in the history of Russian people we could admire... It's this spirit of finding common ground and working things out through dialogue and diplomacy that the world needs so desperately today at this critical point in our history. This is the hope that Obama inspires."

Kristofferson has taken vocal issue with the war in Iraq, and in the 1980s, he devoted an entire album to opposition to U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. He is a former Army captain who turned down an opportunity to teach at West Point, opting instead to go to Nashville to become a songwriter. He wrote such hits as "Me And Bobby McGee," "Help Me Make It Through The Night" and is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Friend Willie Nelson and legend Merle Haggard have also endorsed candidates this election cycle, Dennis Kucinich, D-OH and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY respectively.