Ted Nugent, the 65-year-old rock musician, is campaigning alongside Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott of the GOP who is running for governor.

Nugent is a 70’s rock icon who has been a long-time active supporter of the Republican Party. He is also an advocate of gun ownership rights and a member of the National Rifle Association. The rock star is known for having said crude comments about President Barack Obama during the National Rifle Association convention that was held in 2012. Nugent also called Obama a ‘gangster’ and ‘subhuman mongrel’ just last month in an interview conducted by Guns.com.

Abbott’s decision on inviting Nugent to the campaign has been drawing criticism from the public, especially from the Democrats. Texas Senator Wendy Davis, Abbott’s opponent, has also expressed her sentiments over Abbott’s decision, calling the idea of campaigning with Nugent repulsive and an insult to all Texans.

According to one of Abbott’s senior campaign aides, the decision to bring in Nugent is just a way of increasing the turnout of voters during the campaign. Originally, the event only had about a hundred people committing to attend, but tripled in number when they publicized that Nugent was coming. The attendance of the musician made sure that there were a lot of people who attended the campaign, which was held in a restaurant in Denton, Texas on Tuesday morning.

Abbott’s campaign is putting aside the comments made by Nugent about Obama saying that what he said was in the past. They also added that the rock icon was there to support them, and that they are not the ones endorsing Nugent.

Despite all the controversy regarding the issue, Nugent remained undeterred and even tweeted a short message before the event saying that he is proudly campaigning for Greg Abbott to be the next governor of Texas.

Proudly campaigning for the great TX AG Greg Abbott for TX governor

— Ted Nugent (@TedNugent) February 18, 2014

Watch Ted Nugent’s Nasty Rant

Image via YouTube