When Republicans Endorse Obama | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com

Susan Eisenhower is more than just another disappointed Republican. She is also Ike’s granddaughter and a dedicated member of the party who has urged her fellow Republicans in the past to stick with the GOP. But now Eisenhower, who runs an international consulting firm, is endorsing Barack Obama. She has no plans to officially leave the Republican Party. But in Eisenhower’s view, Obama is the only candidate who can build a national consensus on the issues most important to her—energy, global warming, an aging population and America’s standing in the world.

“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.