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Barack Obama’s campaign is talking with Republicans who have endorsed his presidential bid, seeking to coordinate a publicity blitz together.
The campaign recently held a conference call with a small group of officials who are or who have previously been identified with the Republican Party, according to sources who were on the call.
The initiative to highlight the backing of “Obamacans” is in its infancy. But campaign events featuring Republicans praising Obama are seen as an effective counterpunch to Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-Conn.) aggressive backing of Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) White House bid.
Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee said in a telephone interview this week that he participated in the Obama conference call. Chafee served in the upper chamber from 1999 to 2006 as a Republican representing Rhode Island. Since his reelection loss, he has left the Republican Party and endorsed Sen. Obama (D-Ill.).
Chafee said the GOP-related Obama initiative is in the “beginning phases,” and indicated that the talks will be continuing in the weeks ahead.
Douglas Kmiec, a professor at the Pepperdine University School of Law who was co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign’s Committee for the Courts and the Constitution, has also backed Obama.
In an e-mail, Kmiec said he has been in contact with the Obama campaign, adding: “I think you’ll see a fairly well-designed website to begin; after that, I’m not sure if there will be print ads and such and how tightly the surrogate speaking will be coordinated.”
Sources say the Obama campaign effort will probably not occur until after the selection of a vice presidential candidate and the Democratic convention.
Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of President Eisenhower and a self-described “lifelong Republican,” was also on the call with the Obama campaign, which she said took place in recent days.
Eisenhower, who penned an op-ed in February in The Washington Post backing Obama, stressed that she has not made any decisions on what public role, if any, she will play for the campaign. Eisenhower is president of the Eisenhower Group, which provides strategic counsel on political, business and public affairs projects.
Eisenhower said she was impressed when she met Obama in the spring of 2007 through “one or two” friends on the Obama finance committee.
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