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Republicans for Obama

June 20th, 2007
By Michael van der Galien


In a surprising development (on the face of it at least), quite some Republicans are siding with Senator Barack Obama:

There is an interesting phenomenon that has arisen over the last few months: a trend of moderate Republicans who want to vote for Barack Obama. It may seem counterintuitive, conservatives supporting a candidate who wants to tax the wealthy and embrace the conventions in the Kyoto Accord, but there is something in Obama’s message about ridding politics of partisanship that is appealing to these Republicans.

He doesn’t carry the baggage of a Hillary Clinton. He is new; he seems authentic — although his connection to indicted fund-raiser Tony Rezko has made some previous supporters wonder — and he has more gravitas than pretty boy John Edwards. The Republicans who like him may have supported John McCain in the past, but after eight years of the Bush White House they feel they can no longer support the Republican field. The idea of a congressional glasnost — a harmonic nonpartisanship in Washington — is an Obama goal they endorse.

Some of these right-wing Obama supporters are putative country club Republicans, hailing from areas similar to the North Shore of Chicago. Others are professionals who are disillusioned by the Bush administration’s failure to develop a sound domestic policy to redress issues of health care and Social Security or to end the relentless war in Iraq.

Add to this the secrecy of the Bush administration, the Scooter Libby affair, the unfortunate choice of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, the scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the Tom DeLays and Mark Foleys, and there remains an unsavory stew of problems for those once proud to call themselves Republican.

Kenneth Wehking - who still sees himself as a Republican, from “a philosophical point of view” - explains: “Obama is one of the first candidates who truly seems to embody a spirit of working together and moving forward.”

Randy Cooper, a 60-year-old lawyer from Eaton, N.H, grew up as an Eisenhower Republican and supported George H. W. Bush and John McCain. However, “Cooper began to feel that George II and his acolytes, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were being disingenuous about the reasons for going into Iraq.”

Cooper explains: “I absolutely feel we were lied to. There were other reasons [Bush] wanted to go into Iraq. It wasn’t just about weapons of mass destruction.”

Please click here to read more.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 6:40 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Republicans, 2008 Elections. Both comments and pings are currently closed.


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