By Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 3, 2008
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.
"The thing that is really bothering me now is how a decent and good person who is trying to do the right thing and could do so much for this country is getting mired in all of this stuff that isn't going to help anybody get a job."
DeBusk has defended her candidate at every turn, but she knows that the latest Wright controversy has made many of her Republican neighbors uncomfortable. "Race is such a dicey thing," she said. "People don't really talk about it."
She said she urgently wants to see the Democratic nomination battle end, and when Obama's campaign sends e-mails asking for more money to help him defeat Clinton, she gives another $25. If he is not the Democratic nominee, she said, she will vote for McCain.
As in Indiana, Republicans and independents will play a key role on Tuesday in North Carolina, where more than 30,000 voters have changed their registration to Democrat or independent since January, the State Board of Elections reports.
"To the extent that Republicans" change their registration "and more independents are drawn into this primary, it probably will benefit Obama," said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at North Carolina State University.
One of those Republicans is David Grace, a former Marine who celebrated the "Republican revolution" in Congress in the 1990s. Now he says he's an "Obamican," as the senator's campaign refers to its GOP backers, because he opposes the war in Iraq and says the Bush administration has been fiscally irresponsible.
Grace, 34, changed his registration and became a vigorous campaign volunteer, registering students at a community college every afternoon before going to work at a manufacturing plant near his home in Wilmington. Wright's comments bothered him, but not enough to keep him from supporting Obama.
"There are so many issues that I care about that I can't let one thing that bothers me take me away from the one guy who can take care of a lot of other things," Grace said. "It's ugly, but it's not going to take me away. . . . Everybody's run off the mouth a few times, and I've even done it myself, speaking against the country."
Geoffrey W. Barrick, 41, of Marengo, Iowa, prides himself on being a political independent, but he liked Obama enough to caucus for him this year. Barrick, who describes himself as liberal on race and gender issues, an evangelical and a member of the National Rifle Association, watched for flaws that might cause him to change his mind about Obama as he dealt with Wright.
"He didn't overreact. He didn't go off the deep end," Barrick said. "I don't know if America is going to be smart this time or if America is going to follow the sound bite. I know what I'm going to do. I can back that guy all day long. He's a thinking man, and he's responded to pressure with grace and dignity and candor."
For his part, Szczesny is confident that the Wright issue will reemerge if Obama becomes the Democratic nominee, and he'll withhold judgment until then.
Obama "looked like a puppy who got his rear end slapped," Szczesny said. "He'll bounce back. He's got until November."
Research editor Alice Crites and polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.
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