Beyond the Dome

With the presidential campaign in a bit of a lull, the big event of the day was the announcement of a “Republicans for Obama” group, starring former Republican Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa and former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. It was probably meant to be a boost to the Barack Obama campaign, but it really served as a reminder of how thin those party crossover groups actually are.

There’s always at least one of them in every presidential campaign: Democrats for Bush, Republicans for Clinton, etc. The distinguishing feature of each one, of course, is that the “Democrats” or “Republicans” who start them aren’t exactly mainstream spokespeople for their party. Remember Zell Miller, the senator who started Democrats for Bush in 2004 and even spoke on his behalf at the Republican convention? He was a Democrat, but it was never clear why, when you looked at his voting record.

The same goes for “Republicans for Obama.” Both Leach and Chafee were mainly known for voting against their Republican colleagues more often than almost anyone else in the party, until both lost their re-election bids in 2006. That year, Leach opposed his party on nearly 38 percent of the votes that pitted a majority of Republicans against a majority of Democrats — more often than any other House Republican except Christopher Shays of Connecticut.

And Chafee opposed his party more than any other Senate Republican that year, voting against his GOP colleagues on 60 percent of the votes that divided the parties. In fact, he’s not even a Republican anymore, as he acknowledged on the press conference call arranged by the Obama campaign this morning. He left the party last year and is now an independent.

And while we’re at it, let’s take a look at “Citizens for McCain,” the group John McCain is using to reach out to Democrats and independents.

It’s headed by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, the former Democrat who’s now an independent, but still caucuses with the Democrats to give them their Senate majority, yet votes against them on almost everything related to foreign policy, even though he still sides with them on domestic policy, etc. etc. (Sorry, just made myself dizzy.)

Lieberman isn’t quite at the bottom of the list in terms of voting with the Democrats, but he’s close. So far this year, he has voted with the Democrats on 80 percent of the votes that divided the parties, less than all but six Democratic senators. So it may have taken a little more effort to pull him into the McCain camp than it took to lure Leach and Chafee into the Obama camp, but not by much.

If you see Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona joining Republicans for Obama, or Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California joining Citizens for McCain, then you’ll have a real story of cross-party appeal. Until then, the crossover groups tell us about as much about Obama and McCain as they have about past presidential candidates: nothing.