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Group of ‘Obamacans’ launches effort, features a high-profile get

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I’m not entirely clear on whether we’re supposed to call them “Obamacans” or “Obamacons,” but either way, there’s a group of relatively high profile Republicans who, for a variety of reasons, are supporting Barack Obama. As of this morning, that group includes a prominent former House Republican.

Former U.S. Rep. Jim Leach, a leading Republican moderate with a foreign policy background, is endorsing Democrat Barack Obama for president. The former Iowa congressman’s backing was announced Tuesday as part of a group of GOP activists crossing party lines this year.

Leach told reporters: “I’m convinced that the national interest demands a new approach to our interaction with the world.” Leach added that Obama offers the leadership to do that. […]

Leach predicted that a lot of Republicans and independents are going to be attracted by Obama’s campaign.

“I have no doubt that his is the leadership we need and that the world is crying out for,” Leach added.

He isn’t entirely alone in this. In recent months, a fair amount of Republicans and conservatives have announced their support for Obama, but most aren’t exactly household names (Doug Kmiec, Jeffrey Hart, Armstrong Williams, Richard Whalen). But this morning, the list not only got bigger — Leach is a pretty big “get” — it got organized. “Republicans for Obama” kicked off their efforts.

It sets up an interesting contrast. Last week, the McCain campaign unveiled a video filled with Democrats who’d said complimentary things (in the past) about McCain. This ups the ante — we have a group of Republicans who not are only praising Obama, but are actively supporting his campaign and encouraging other Republicans to do the same.

Rita Hauser, a former fundraiser for Bush who is helping organize this initiative for Obama, said this morning, “[I]t’s difficult to walk away from your party’s nominee but you have to put your country first.”

The NYT had an online item about the “Republicans for Obama” effort.

Rita Hauser, a New York philanthropist who raised money for both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, is helping to organize the push to draw Republicans away from Mr. McCain and will serve as a spokeswoman for the group, alongside former U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee, of Rhode Island, who was one of the most moderate Republicans in the Senate and became an independent after he lost his seat in 2006.

Ms. Hauser served as a finance chairwoman in New York for George W. Bush in 2000 and was a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board during his first term, but she endorsed Senator John F. Kerry in 2004, because of her opposition to the Iraq War.

Ms. Hauser said she was motivated to support the presumed Democratic nominee, Mr. Obama, again by her feelings on Iraq. But she said others in the group were driven by other issues.

About 20 current and former Republicans make up the group’s leadership committee, including Douglas Kmiec, a Republican who served in the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan and was a supporter of Mitt Romney during the Republican primary, and Dorothy Danforth Burlin, a Washington lawyer who is the daughter of former U.S. Senator John Danforth, another moderate Republican.

The group plans to unveil a Web site this week that will include a chat room and the ability for others to sign onto their cause.

It’s hard to predict whether this will have any significant impact, but I don’t doubt there are plenty of Republican voters out there who aren’t satisfied with the direction of the country, and aren’t encouraged by the prospect of John McCain picking up where George W. Bush left off.

If nothing else

, I’m glad Republicans for Obama exists, so they can at least know that they’re not alone.

C’mon over, disaffected Republicans, the water’s fine.

Comments

  • citizen_pain

    says:

    Rita Hauser, a former fundraiser for Bush who is helping organize this initiative for Obama, said this morning, “[I]t’s difficult to walk away from your party’s nominee but you have to put your country first.”

    Funny, didn’t the GOP just release a new campaign strategy/platform, titled, ironically enough, “putting country first?”

  • N.Wells

    says:

    This is important, on the level with the success of Reagan Democrats back in 1980. Since Bush 1 made “liberal” a bad word and Rush went on air, Republicans have worked themselves into an insane, intense, and kneejerk rejection of all things Democratic. Thus I think a lot of rank and file Republican voters need help crossing the barrier of supporting a Democrat. An increasing number of high-profile Republicans publically supporting Obama helps remove that barrier.

  • beep52

    says:

    C’mon over, disaffected Republicans, the water’s fine.

    Yeah, and even though the reality sometimes sucks, at least it’s reality.

  • Martin

    says:

    Armstrong Effin Williams!?!?!?! The guy the Bush Admin was paying to shill their policies on the radio? Did McCain kill his dog or something?

  • Racer X

    says:

    This is a very good development, since McCain’s only argument is that Obama is only a stuffed suit. If more and more Republicans of national stature say Obama is the real deal, then McCain’s argument falls flat, and not only that it makes McCain out to be a liar.

    More, please!

  • Racer X

    says:

    Armstrong Effin Williams!?!?!?! The guy the Bush Admin was paying to shill their policies on the radio? Did McCain kill his dog or something?

    He’s black, that might factor in a bit, but yeah, I’d rather he stayed well clear, given his history of whoring for Bush. Oh well, I guess we’ll take what we can get.

  • Mark D

    says:

    My dad — a non-elected-to-office Republican — is supporting Obama and has for a while. He’s a smart dude, remembers the Keating scandal, and hates how McCain is using past military service for gain while preventing anyone from criticizing McCain based on that service.

    Dude was also Navy enlisted and isn’t a big fan of Academy legacies who didn’t earn shit. So there’s that …

    🙂

  • neil wilson

    says:

    I always like Jim Leach. I was very disappointed when he lost his seat.

    It is tough being a moderate in either party. Leach was always a decent man. He easily could have been a conservative Democrat or a moderate Republican. Unfortunately, both parties seem intent on eliminating their moderate wings.

  • William

    says:

    All I can say is good, and come on over, the water is real. beep52 and I are on the same page/in the same boat. Wow, Republicans aren’t all bad after all! Wonders never cease.

  • Cmac

    says:

    N. Wells (#2): It wasn’t Bush I who made liberal into a bad word – it was Reagan. Remember all the hoopla about being ‘card-carrying members of the ACLU?’

    Sometimes Bush II’s badness eclipses my memory of the origins of our present circumstances. Every once in a while, though, something comes along to remind me of what a truly loathsome toad Reagan was. Your comment did it for me today.

  • Chris O.

    says:

    Armstrong Williams endorsed Obama? Bush didn’t just pay him to endorse McCain? They’re slipping in the White House.

  • Chad

    says:

    Obama will have to try something to couner all the Hillary supporters that will vote for McCain.

    What is this world coming to anyway? We have Republicans voting for Obama, Democrats voting for McCain, threats of bi-partisan tickets, fanatacism with politics, the list goes on and on. One things for sure, this will be an election to remember.

  • Mimikatz

    says:

    Now if they can just get Chuck Hegel and Colin Powell to publicly endorse, it would go a long way to counteracting the sleazy McCain campaign ads.

    Perhaps McCain’s insanely bellicose reaction to Russia’s incursion into Georgia will give some saner Republicans pause.

  • Dale

    says:

    Rita Hauser, a former fundraiser for Bush who is helping organize this initiative for Obama, said this morning, “[I]t’s difficult to walk away from your party’s nominee but you have to put your country first.”

    That’s right. Country first.

  • SadOldVet

    says:

    Please Steve – Use the term ‘ObamaCANs’. Leave the CONS digging a deeper hole for the rethugs.

  • OkieFromMuskogee

    says:

    Let’s try to tilt the scale towards calling this group “Obamacans.”

    The “A” in Obamacan echos “American” and “Yes we can,” as well as Republican.

    “Obamacons” reinforces several negative images – neocons, con men, con-servatives, and of course con-victs.

  • phoebes in santa fe

    says:

    So, big deal, “Republicans for Obama”.

    Remember, McCain has JOE LIEBERMAN.

    No soft, pissy-faced “liberal Republican”. for him!

    But, actually, “RFO” doesn’t surprise me. Remember when Julie Nixon Eisenhower and (I think) her sister-in-law, Susan, endorced Obama a few months ago? “Welcome, indeed”!

  • Lance

    says:

    I suppose it’s nice.

    But most of these guys thought George Walker Bush, or as he ought to be known, Boy George II, was going to be a good president.

    Do they really have the judgement we can trust.

  • Edo

    says:

    …ups the ante — we have a group of Republicans who not are only praising Obama…

    yes, but McCain has Super Joe. He’s got Joementum behind him and the horde of liebermanatics that await their masters bidding.

    And I’ll bet Zell Miller is just waiting to be asked his opinion. Obama and the obamacons must be shaking in their boots.

    /GOP troll parody

  • JWK

    says:

    What I see are a lot of disaffected Republicans who are disgusted with the Neo-con take over of their party. In the forums that I visit, I see this refrain time and again from Republicans: “Give me back my party”. They’re fed up with the Neo-con faction.

  • Bruno

    says:

    I agree with chad @ 14

    It is amazing how fractured both parties have become. Maybe it is time to re-arrange the political party system, instead of trying to neatly divide the country in two sections.

    conservatives here – and liberals there
    poor people here – rich people there
    religious people here – and secular people there
    democrats here – and republicans there
    entrepreneurs here – and working class there
    Pro-choice here – anti-abortion there
    gay bashers here – gay rights advocates there
    small government here – Big government there
    No more taxes here – More social services there
    etc… the list goes on and on.

    However, as America has ‘evolved’ it seems that the 2 parties no longer have exclusive groups of people.

    I have seen that ALL the listed categories are represented in BOTH parties. Granted depending on the party, it will be either more or less in each, but the point is that it is no longer clearly defined.

    Republicans historically were the party of fiscal responsibility, but lately it seems that this mantle has come to be a Democratic Party ideal. There are many more examples where previous dogmas have been more fluid.

  • Lance

    says:

    The problem Bruno is that these are all skew lines, because politics doesn’t exist along a single line continuim, but in a 3 (or more) dimensional space. You think Republican’ts want a smaller government, until they come along and want to regulate who you f***, how you f*** and when you f***. Then they need a huge bureaucracy (the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) staffed by thousands of bedroom police, censors, prosecutors and executioners.

    And that is just one example.

  • N.Wells

    says:

    CMac, #12: I’m not disagreeing with your view of Reagan, who certainly indulged in liberal bashing (following a long history of conservatives bashing people for supposedly being “card-carrying members of the Comunist Party”). Nor do I want you to stop thinking of Reagan as a loathsome toad. However, if memory serves me right (and I’ll listen to being corrected if I am wrong), Dukakis referred to himself as a card-carrying member of the ACLU in one of the debates, and then Bush The First beat him up with it. Reagan had previously attacked liberal traditions and viewpoints but he mostly used the term liberal as a relatively neutral label for ideas he considered wrong. In the 1988 election, Bush began using the word “liberal” as if he expected his audience to take it, with no further explanation, as a bad thing. I remember thinking it was an odd usage (it made me think yes, of course Dukakis is a liberal, that’s why I support him).

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    In fact, while McCarthy started the meme, it was William Safire (writing for Agnew) who really got the ball rolling on this, as well as the ‘Democrats are elitists’ one and several others.

    And he, like many of the Obamacans, later repented when he saw what he had brought forth, and became one of Nixon’s harshest critics.

    And speaking of Republicans for Obama, don’t forget John Dean (who still worships at Goldwater’s shrine, but who has repeatedly endorsed Obama and has been one of the truly powerful critics of Bushicanism.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    Jim Leach is a great guy and I am thrilled to see this. Less thrilled that Leach is pushing Hagel for VP; Hagel is well to the right of Leach. Actually, Leach would be an awesome VP, allowing Obama to practice his “post-partisan” politics without any real divergence on major issues. And Leach is seriously freakin’ smart. He wouldn’t bring much to the ticket in terms of geography or demographics except for the ability to safely have an off-party VP – but that might be enough (downside acknowledgment: it screws things up for 2016.)

  • ericfree

    says:

    Although this story doesn’t mention him, Salon says Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who is now an Independent, is part of this group too. Another thing Chafee and Leach have in common is that both were defeated for re-election in 2006. This may be their finest moment, but the last election was a sad one for the sane wing of the Republican Party. For what have become increasingly obvious reasons, I still mourn Lowell Weicker’s defeat by Joe Lieberman twenty years ago.

  • ericfree

    says:

    Sorry, Chafee is in there, though not as prominently as I expected. Not my day for speedreading; must be some batshit in the air.

  • doubtful

    says:

    He easily could have been a conservative Democrat or a moderate Republican. -neil wilson

    Nice framing.

    A Democrat looking for middle ground is conservative. A Republic looking for middle ground is moderate.

    Unfortunately, both parties seem intent on eliminating their moderate wings. -neil wilson

    Except that Hillary and Barack, the two strongest Dem contenders, are about as moderate as they come. You might have a point if Kucinich was the Democratic nominee, but he’s not. Obama is with the majority of America on nearly every major issue.

    So either he’s moderate or America is full of radical liberals.

  • joey (bjobotts)

    says:

    From driftglass:

    “…My Party spent 30 years lying, cheating, and clawing our way to power and calling anyone who stood in our way a traitor.

    To sieze power we methodically annihilated the very idea of political comity in America, and when we were at the peak of Gingrich-fever, we laughing at anyone who suggested that compromise was a virtue.

    And once we achieved our goal of running every branch of government, we proceeded to destroy everything we touched. We mocked the dead and dying of New Orleans. Broke whole countries. Bankrupted the nation enriching a handful of plutocrats. Pissed away an international reputation it took fifty years of skill and patience to construct.

    And now that we are falling into the abyss we created – now that all the consequence the hated Dirty Fucking Hippies warned us about are coming to pass – we’d like to, uh, move past partisanship and, uh, all get along…”

    Finally some republicans have looked into the abyss and said, “Not me. This ends now”

    Those Hillary supporters who claim they are voting for McCain (all 20 of ’em) are not basing their votes on policies but on retribution against some vile Obama supporters. These republicans are basing their decision of policies and maybe will get others to stop being so stubborn and open their eyes and their minds…hopefully

  • karen marie

    says:

    Armstrong Williams = carpetbagger

    if anyone has any doubt that armstrong williams has any interest other than his self-interest is deluded. he sees the writing on the wall and is positioning himself to take best advantage.

  • karen marie

    says:

    18.
    On August 12th, 2008 at 1:41 pm, OkieFromMuskogee said:

    Let’s try to tilt the scale towards calling this group “Obamacans.”

    The “A” in Obamacan echos “American” and “Yes we can,” as well as Republican.

    “Obamacons” reinforces several negative images – neocons, con men, con-servatives, and of course con-victs.

    **********************
    personally, i think you’re correct in your thinking here except in suggesting we “try to tilt the scale towards … obamacans.”

    their “support” for obama is entirely self-serving until and if they demonstrate their conversion AFTER the election (presuming obama is elected) and DURING obama’s term in office.

    armstrong williams is, for instance, most definitely an obamaCON.

  • Jen

    says:

    Just agreeing that everytime I see the word “Obamacon” I have to stop and think if that means they’re good or bad, for him or against him.

    Obamacan just has much better connotations, what with the can there.

  • Alex C

    says:

    “Obamicans,” please. The other portmanteau makes me think of some sort of cans that belong to Obama — and “cons” is just wrong in all respect.

  • Bob McWilliams

    says:

    Jim Leach was one of the smartest members of Congress and I’ve always had a good deal of respect for his integrity as well as his ability. It’s too bad he’s not putting his countr first, though (satire alert!)

  • libra

    says:

    What I see are a lot of disaffected Republicans who are disgusted with the Neo-con take over of their party. In the forums that I visit, I see this refrain time and again from Republicans: “Give me back my party”. They’re fed up with the Neo-con faction. — JWK, @23

    I have a couple of Repub acquaintances who have been saying exactly the same thing, since about ’05. I finally got so tired of this whining, that I asked them point blank: “And where the eff were *you*, when the unspecified “they” took it away from you? And, who do you think is going to “give it back”? You want it back, you have to take it back yourself; sitting there, kvetching, isn’t gonna fix anything. Or, if you think your party is past repair, then move to the Dems’ side”.

    Glad to report one of them *has* re-registered as a Dem (so as to be able to vote for Obama in the primaries). The other remains a staunch Repub (“I want to be able to influence *Republican* primaries” — good girl!) though she says she’ll vote Dem come November “just this once” (I think she’s got the hots for Obama)