Newsweek had an interesting item the other day that I think really speaks to Barack Obama’s ability to inspire the electorate :

“Barack Obama will really be in a singular position to attract moderate Republicans,” she told NEWSWEEK. “I wanted to do what many people did for my grandfather in 1952. He was hugely aided in his quest for the presidency by Democrats for Eisenhower. There’s a long and fine tradition of crossover voters.”

Eisenhower is one of a small but symbolically powerful group of what Obama recently called “Obamacans”—disaffected Republicans who have drifted away from their party just as Eisenhower Democrats did and, more recently, Reagan Democrats in the 1980s. They include lifelong Republican Tricia Moseley, a former staffer for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, the one-time segregationist from South Carolina. Now a high-school teacher, Moseley says she was attracted to Obama’s positions on education and the economy.

Former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough, who anchors MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” says many conservative friends—including Bush officials and evangelical Christians—sent him enthusiastic e-mails after seeing Obama’s post-election speeches in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. “He doesn’t attack Republicans, he doesn’t attack whites and he never seems to draw these dividing lines that Bill Clinton [does],” Scarborough told NEWSWEEK.

I know a few conservatives who support Obama that would never have dreamed of supporting a Democrat before they saw him speak. I know a lot of Obama’s detractors think his promises to bring people together amount to a bunch of naive “fairy tales”, but having spoken to Republican voters that are excited to vote for Obama, I can’t help but give him the benefit of the doubt. Especially compared to Hillary, who I doubt will ever be able to get Republican support (in the election or in Congress). This “Obamacan” support is really the basis for the urgency I’m feeling about the primary now. As Barack himself noted in an interview posted at The New Republic :

BRODY: Will Hillary be a drag for down-ticket races as a presidential candidate?

OBAMA: I think there is no doubt that she has higher negatives than any of the remaining democratic candidates. That’s just a fact and there are some who will not vote for her. If you look at the results in Nevada, for example, she eked out the popular vote victory over me, but I ended up winning more delegates because she got almost all of her votes from Clark County, Las Vegas and some of the traditional democratic areas. We got votes there, but we also got votes in northern Nevada and rural conservative regions of the state that traditionally don’t vote Democratic, but were excited about my campaign.

I have no doubt that once the nomination contest is over, I will get the people who voted for her. Now the question is can she get the people who voted for me? And I think that describes sort of one of the choices that people have, just a practical choice, as they move forward.”

Personally, I don’t quite understand why Republicans would support Barack Obama. His positions across the board are solidly Democratic : universal(ish) healthcare, ending the war, reversing tax cuts for the rich, government transparency, raising the minimum wage, etc. But I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If conservatives and moderates are being inspired to support a liberal agenda, why the hell would we want to throw that support away?