Smart Republicans

Yes, there are smart Republicans, and now that Sen. Obama has solidified his base, captured the middle, he is now moving those smart Republicans into his camp:

An increasing number of disaffected Republicans fed up with what they see as President Bush's broken promises and unimpressed with John McCain say they may be switching teams in November to vote for Democratic candidate Barack Obama

Who are some of these GOoPers that have saw the light:

Among the reformed righties now hoping for an Obama victory are free-market economist David Friedman, former Reagan aide Douglas Kmiec, Contract With America co-author Larry Hunter and Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of the former president

There's more insight at the SF Chronicle:

"The untold story of the Bush administration is the deliberate annihilation of the Reaganite, small-government wing of the Republican Party," said Michael Greve, director of the Federalism Project at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "A lot of people are very bitter about it."

Many conservatives and their brethren, the free-market, socially liberal libertarians, are deeply skeptical of Obama's rhetorical flirtations with free-market ideas and view his policies as orthodox liberalism. Yet one measure of their rupture with the GOP is their open disregard for Republican nominee John McCain and their now almost-wistful view of a president the Republicans tried to impeach.

And then they point out the main symptom, which is even more prevalent here in the local blogosphere:

(S)entiments reflect a collapse of the "big tent" conservative coalition that Republican President Ronald Reagan forged in 1980, uniting free-market, small-government types, Christian evangelicals, cultural traditionalists and anti-communists, now called neoconservatives.

Local Scaifers have abandoned the big tent nature, and with their more recent treatment of the override 6, clearly shows they are all but willing to take a mulligan on this election cycle. That attitude and behavior may make them feel all warm and fuzzy, but it is alienating the voters they need to become viable. An E-Mail like this one show the trend is more then fodder for a national blog screed:

A Republican friend , business owner, pulled me aside and told me he is voting as an Independent this year, and he and his wife are voting for Obama. He is very angry at Bush and thinks McCain would even make it worse. He wished he was brave enough to shout it from the house tops, but he has to think about his business too.

There is a lot of time between now and November, but with the GOP having major league base problems, they may never have a chance to court the middle. And without the middle, the electoral math is pretty tough.

Flash