Despite Wright Flap, Obama's GOP Backers Sticking With Him -- for Now

Barry R. Szczesny, a lifelong Republican from the Detroit suburbs, was so taken by Sen. Barack Obama in January that he switched parties so he could vote for him -- forgetting in his excitement that Michigan had been disqualified from the presidential primary process and that Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot.

"I thought he was a very smart guy. He had the charisma maybe to bring people along. And he had a message early and attracted young people," said Szczesny, 71. "But, like anything else, the longer a guest stays, the more he smells like fish."

Szczesny hasn't abandoned the Democrat, but the racially charged comments of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama's former pastor, have raised enough concerns about the senator's ability to unify the country that Szczesny's not nearly as sure as he was a couple of months ago.

"Let's see how things roll," he said. "I'm getting a little weak-kneed."

Interviews this week with more than a dozen registered Republicans and independents who have lined up behind Obama suggest that many share Szczesny's concerns but that most are sticking with the candidate for now. Only two Republicans who voted for Obama in a primary said they might dump him in November for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive GOP nominee. The rest said they're behind the senator from Illinois, though some wondered how many more controversies their recent conversions could take.

From the start, Obama has courted Republicans and independents, seeing potential supporters who would epitomize his goal of moving beyond the nation's red-blue divide. They have also been an important part of Obama's cache as a transformational political figure -- without Republicans and independents, he would seem a whole lot more like any other Democrat.

Holding on to their support has become critical to Obama's hopes of winning the Democratic nomination. In January and February, hundreds of thousands of Republicans preferred him to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), giving him an average advantage of 2 to 1 in eight early contests where exit polls showed strong turnout among Republicans. But in the Pennsylvania primary, which Obama lost by 10 percentage points last month, former Republicans split their votes evenly between Clinton and Obama.

Obama has highlighted his crossover appeal in Indiana, where Republicans and independents can vote in Tuesday's primary, by gaining endorsements from three of the state's prominent Republicans: John Clark, a top aide to Republican Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr.; William D. Ruckelshaus, a Nixon administration lawyer; and Jim Benham, president of the Indiana chapter of the National Farmers Union.

Still, there is evidence that the Wright controversy has hurt Obama. In a recent Fox News poll, nearly 6 in 10 Republicans said they were less likely to vote for the senator because of his relationship with Wright.

In a potential matchup against McCain, Obama continues to appeal to more moderate Republicans and independents than Clinton does. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll after the first Wright flare-up and other political troubles for Obama, about 14 percent of Republicans said they would vote for Obama in a general election and 7 percent opted for Clinton. Among independents, 48 percent said they would support Obama. Thirty-nine percent said they would back Clinton.

Laura Barchi DeBusk, 37, a Republican from Richmond who said she voted for Obama, said she's "dying every day" that the Democratic nomination battle continues.

"Can we just move on?" she said. "I feel terrible for [Obama], but this hasn't swayed me at all, because all I can think about is: What does this have to do with anything? Obama doesn't believe any of these things Reverend Wright said.