Welcome to the Big Kids Pool – Republicans for Obama

I received notice that the Obama campaign has finally officially recognized the movement called “Republicans for Obama (R.F.O.)” The formal “leak” was last night by The New York Times. For several months, I managed the press operations for this group and we voluntarily took on the role of the voice crying in the wilderness. I believe I still have scars from the ideological battles I participated in with Laura Ingraham, John Gibson and Neil Cavuto of Fox News Channel.

I decided to leave my responsibilities at R.F.O. to write a national politics column for Examiner.com as well as post my moderate Republican / Libertarian musings about the campaign on “The Moderate Voice.” My concern, at the time of my leaving, was centered on how much influence the Obama campaign would assert on the message of R.F.O. The group was effective in the primaries because we stayed true to our message of fiscal responsibility without the need for mandating social policy.

The grassroots leadership of R.F.O. did not care about the limelight or trying to get a position in an Obama administration; we just thought he was (and still is) the best candidate. It would be a real shame if the hard work of these folks over the past nineteen months is hi-jacked by Obama’s campaign, or worse, by disgruntled Republicans who did not have the guts to come forward to publicly support Senator Obama before he became the presumptive Democratic nominee.

As my mother still proudly tells me, “the proof is in the pudding.” Will Obama’s campaign allow this new R.F.O. to have some credibility in Republican circles by pointing out the good (and the not so good) points about his candidacy? Or will this just be another coalition piece that has no connection to reality because the truth is momentarily inconvenient? Welcome to the Big Kid’s Pool “Republicans for Obama”…now it is time to see if you will sink under political pressure or swim to victory like Michael Phelps.