Clinton era critic featured as Dems launch “Republicans for Obama” campaign today

August 12th, 2008

Democrats have united behind Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and the party will officially nominate him for president in Denver later this month. Now, some Republicans want to help him get to the White House, too.

On Tuesday, Obama’s campaign will officially launch a “Republicans for Obama” campaign, featuring James Leach, a former GOP congressman from Iowa who once headed the House Financial Services Committee, among other Republicans. Those members of the GOP, says Obama’s campaign, “are crossing the divide of old politics to support Barack Obama for president.”

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/election/2008/08/12/republicans-for-obama-launching-tuesday/


NYT yesterday: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/obamacans-unite/


Obama-cans Unite
By Michael Luo

August 11, 2008, 7:01 pm -- Led by a former Bush fund-raiser and a former U.S. Senator who bolted the G.O.P. several years ago, a group of current and former Republicans disenchanted with Senator John McCain and supportive of Senator Barack Obama are banding together to start a “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.

...now that he's not beholden to the Republicans.

Please advise

from HuffPo: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/12/gopers-for-obama-rip-mcca_n_118414.html


August 12, 2008 11:05 AM


"I served with Sen. McCain, and he and I were the only two to vote against the Bush/Cheney tax cuts," recalled former republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee. "During this campaign it is a different John McCain. He is saying he would make the tax cuts permanent. He is advocating more drilling whereas he voted against drilling in ANWR. It goes to his credibility. And that is such an important issue for this country... plus his foreign policy has been consistently with Bush/Cheney and I know from my perspective that is a huge issue for the United States."


"I think the little flare up we are witnessing in Georgia is another illustration of the different approach these two men are taking," Rita Hauser (a national intelligence expert who served in the Bush administration) said. "McCain is bellicose: threatening to kick Russia out of the G8, use force if it is required. Obama is far more of the traditional position: turn to international institutions, call for reconciliation, call for an end of hostilities, but also be firm in his words. And that's the kind of leadership we need."

Reflecting disenchantment over the Bush/Cheney years, Leach, Chafee and Hauser all touted Obama's pledge of post-partisanship as a defining aspect in why they were crossing party lines . . .

As part of their Republicans-for-Obama effort, the group said they would be launch a website in the next few days that would, primarily, contrast Obama's positions against McCain's through a Republican lens. "It will encourage others to come on because they will see that there is a growing number of Republicans around the country that support him," said Hauser.

"This is not a time for politics as usual," said former Rep. Jim Leach. "The portfolio of issues passed on to the next president is as daunting as any since WWII. The case for inspiring new political leadership and the social ethic has seldom been more evident. Barack Obama's platform is a call for change, but the change that he is articulating is more renewal than departure. ... It is rooted in very old American values that are very much part of the Republican as well as the Democratic tradition. ... The national interest requires a new approach to our interaction with the world -- including the recognition that a long-term occupation of Iraq is likely dangerously destabilizing."

Paleeeeze.....

. . . apart from the inevitable memories their names dredge up for veterans of political fights with them in the past.

Whatever label they're given or adopt, these are republicans who gave support to legislation and causes across the aisle they agreed with, to the scorn of their party. It must have gotten under their skin already because the RNC put out a release today criticizing Sen. Obama for a 'lack of bipartisanship."

RNC release: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-12-2008/0004866322&EDATE=