Yes, that is what the article says the convention will be doing.

Chill on the Republican appearances: it's not like they're going to be keynote speakers or play a big role; they'll be there in the same way that turncoat former Democrats like Zell Miller was at the 2004 Republican convention.

The few Republican defectors will be there precisely to argue that voters should look to a Democratic-controlled government if they want to see things done in their best interest.

there`s a long list of republicans going back to ike that would not be welcomed in today`s republican party.

a healthy democracy needs healthy political parties and today the republican party is in intensive care.

You cannot effectively govern a divided country, so getting the reasonable pubbies on board is essential. It tells you O wants to govern, to make law, to make change, not merely to obstruct change and hold power.

And I am quite OK with holding O's feet to the fire after we give him those Congressional majorities. We need to beat on them like a gong the first two years.

today that long time ex-Republican senators can't support their nominee. Also, it's not really new. Several Republicans spoke out for Obama in 2008, too.

i`m sure there will be more of them this year...well the ones that are still alive.

At first glance, I can see the trepidation some feel. However, the GOP has lost their so-called moderates in primaries to teabaggers, and having these Rs at the Dem Convention will be the ultimate slap in the face to Rmoney who inexplicably has kowtowed to the RW extremists.

I must respectfully disagree. Having Republican (or very recent ex-Republican converts) would be good for the President's re-election efforts and for the Democratic Party.

I know as well as anyone else on DU how far right the Republican Party has gone. But we're aware, we're politically engaged, and we don't accept the stuff the sorry-@ssed corporate media foists off on us as informed and complete political reporting.


But most voters aren't all that engaged, they do accept the stuff from CNN, CBS, and ABC as gospel and they haven't noticed just how craven and gutless the corporate media has become. Moreover, many voters still vote for party out of habit, even if that party doesn't reflect their interests or supports their individual positions. That's why you still have politically-clueless Eisenhower Republicans and some of the Reaganites voting Republican even though the GOP in general and the Tea Party in particular is pushing for a political agenda that would drag the federal government back to the corrupt and social-darwinist 1870s, 1880's, and 1890's.

I think that having a couple of Republican speakers might make more Republican voters FINALLY do what a lot of earlier (former) liberal Republicans and (former) centrist Republicans did some years ago--realize that their party has left them, that they owe their former party nothing, and that they should vote Democratic.

as I am about good functional government. What has happened to the modern GOP is that it has been taken over by bomb throwers, saboteurs, and people whom believe in winning at all costs and an extreme "take-no-prisoners" attitude, none of which is conducive to good stewardship of our government and they have driven out a segment of the party that runs counter to that mentality. They may not always have the *correct* way of looking at things but at least their hearts and minds tell them that what the extremist elements of their party want for the country is not in our country's best interests and have been pretty much drummed out of their party and they need somewhere to go. Why not bring them in our direction? These are people whom are more open-minded (obviously, since people like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich would never be caught dead- or alive- at the DNC) and likely to be won over to our way of thinking. Better to embrace potential supporters wherever we can get them IMHO rather than simply tell them to get lost simply because they haven't changed their party affiliation and/or have all of the *correct* positions on everything. Nobody is asking us to adopt their ideas and/or plaster them over our Party Platform as a condition of their support.

If you look at the pie charts on a site like City-Data, and look at the blue/red from the Bush years, and the McCain/Obama election, and you'll see that he won because people who previously voted for Bush, came over and voted for Obama.

Not every republican is a "repuke." Many of them are fiscal conservatives who have become disenchanted with the special brand of lunacy and hate that their Party has curated in the past 10 years. If a republican wants to speak at the Convention, and is not going to pitch for Romney, then what's the problem?

The Democrats have been very upfront about what they offer to the voters... unlike the other candidate that spends 100% of their time trying to cut/paste the President's comments to attack him. The President's Campaign, has done a great job responding to these attacks and flat out lies, challenge Romney so that we're not the ones on defense (like we usually are,) while STILL letting the voters know what the stand for.

Are you completely unaware of the tools they have publicized? The ones where you can calculate what taxes under the Dems would be? Or how certain platforms would affect you? They've done so much more than the republicans to show WHY you should vote for the President and the Democrats, not just why you shouldn't vote for Romney... You're just not looking very hard.