Sunday 06 May 2007

Disillusioned supporters of President George W Bush are defecting to
Barack Obama, the Democratic senator for Illinois, as the White House
candidate with the best chance of uniting a divided nation.

Tom Bernstein went to Yale University with Bush and co-owned the
Texas Rangers baseball team with him. In 2004 he donated the maximum
$2,000 to the president's reelection campaign and gave $50,000 to the
Republican National Committee. This year he is switching his support to
Obama. He is one of many former Bush admirers who find the Democrat
newcomer appealing.

Matthew Dowd, Bush's chief campaign strategist in 2004, announced
last month that he was disillusioned with the war in Iraq and the
president's "my way or the highway" style of leadership - the first
member of Bush's inner circle to denounce the leader's performance in
office.

Although Dowd has yet to endorse a candidate, he said the only one
he liked was Obama. "I think we should design campaigns that appeal, not
to 51% of the people, but bring the country together as a whole," Dowd
said.

Bernstein is a champion of human rights, who admires Obama's call
for action on Darfur, while Dowd's opposition to the war has been
sharpened by the expected deployment to Iraq of his son, an
Arabic-speaking Army intelligence specialist.

But last week a surprising new name joined the chorus of praise for
the antiwar Obama - that of Robert Kagan, a leading neoconservative and
co-founder of the Project for the New American Century in the late
1990s, which called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Kagan is an informal foreign policy adviser to the Republican
senator John McCain, who remains the favoured neoconservative choice for
the White House because of his backing for the troops in Iraq.

But in an article in the Washington Post, Kagan wrote approvingly
that a keynote speech by Obama at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs
was "pure John Kennedy", a neocon hero of the cold war.

In his speech, Obama called for an increase in defence spending and
an extra 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines to "stay on the offense"
against terrorism and ensure America had "the strongest, best-equipped
military in the world". He talked about building democracies, stopping
weapons of mass destruction and the right to take unilateral action to
protect US "vital interests" if necessary, as well as the importance of
building alliances.

"Personally, I liked it," Kagan wrote.

Disagreements on the war have not stopped John Martin, a Navy
reservist and founder of the website Republicans for Obama, from
supporting the antiwar senator. He joined the military after the Iraq
war and is about to be deployed to Afghanistan.

"I disagree with Obama on the war but I don't think it is a test of
his patriotism," Martin says. "Obama has a message of hope for the
country."

Financiers have also been oiling Obama's campaign. In Chicago, his
home town, John Canning, a "Bush pioneer" and investment banker who
pledged to raise $100,000 for the president in 2004, has given up on the
Republicans. "I know lots of my friends in this business are
disenchanted and are definitely looking for something different," he
said.

Not to be outdone, Hillary Clinton has many Republican defectors of
her own, including John Mack, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, who
helped raise $200,000 for the president's reelection, qualifying him as
a "Bush ranger". He said last week that he was impressed by Clinton's
expertise. "I know we're associated mainly with the Republicans but
we've always gone for the individual," Mack said.

According to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics
in Washington, Obama and Clinton have vacuumed up more than $750,000
(£375,000) in individual contributions from former Bush donors.

Some of the donations reflect the natural tendency of those with
power to shift to the likely White House winner. Penny Pritzker, the
staggeringly successful head of fundraising for Obama, voted for John
Kerry, the 2004 Democratic candidate, but also donated that year to
Bush. As she was a head of the family-run Hyatt hotel chain, it was
considered a prudent move.

With the Democrats widely expected to win in 2008, Clinton's status
as frontrunner is encouraging Wall Street money to migrate to her, while
Obama may be picking up some mischievous "Stop Hillary" donations from
still-loyal Republicans. But there is plenty of genuine enthusiasm to go
around.

A poll released by Rasmussen last week showed Obama overtaking
Clinton for the first time by 32% to 30%, although another poll by
Quinnepiac showed her with a 14-point lead over the Illinois senator,
her nearest rival.

The current issue of the New Yorker contains a profile of Obama,
which highlights his appeal to conservatives.

For his optimism about the future, Obama has been dubbed the "black
Ronald Reagan". He frequently challenges the black community to support
two-parent families and encourage school students, instead of
criticising them for "acting white".

=.o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yipe!!!

What????

Its all about money!

Whatever happened to being the right man or woman for the job?

Can anyone here truly accept any of the current canditates as right for
the job.

Look at the history of the United States in the last 2 decades and
think... Career politicians got us where we are today. Can a career
politician get us out?

Or will such a mistake just dig us deeper.

when Bush was reelected how many cabinet members left? That told a big
story.. miles