Country stations stopped playing the group's songs. Talk-radio hosts urged listeners to complain about Maines' remarks. And a Nashville audience of 18,000 booed the host of a music awards show who urged forgiveness.
None of that was lost on Music Row. Democratic songwriters say that they have since hesitated to express political views, for fear of being "Dixie Chicked."
Record-company executives said they were leery of discussing their opinions, to avoid damaging artists they represent.
At the same time, the Republican Party's use of country music at political events and the popularity of patriotic songs like Toby Keith's Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American) rankled industry liberals.
Keith's publicity agent said the singer is a lifelong Democrat and the perception of him as conservative is a "myth."
Music Row Democrats started in late 2003 with a meeting of more than 20 label executives and songwriters. It says it now has 1,200 members from the Nashville music industry and 1,100 others.
James Stroud, Lewis' co-chairman at Universal and a Republican, said that many Music Row Democrats were "dear friends," but that he disagreed with their using music for political ends.
"I don't think we need to use music to influence, or try to influence, a big bloc of people when all they want to do is just listen to the music," Stroud said. "You start fooling with that, and you're going to start having some failure."
The singer and songwriter Chely Wright has felt the heat of crossfire, but she said she was not affected by it. Wright's song Bumper of My SUV, about a confrontation over a Marine sticker on her vehicle, earned praise from conservatives and scorn from liberals.
She recently recorded I Ain't Gettin' Any Younger, which opens with, "The cost of crude keeps going up/More precious now than gold."
It ends by asking, "Why it makes somebody mad/That a baby named John Doe/Might get to have two loving dads."
Wright said: "When one does say anything less than, `Ooh baby, ooh baby, I love you,' in a song, in my format, out of this town, you really put yourself out there as a bit of a lightning rod. I can't have those fears."
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