Tom Bevan recently wrote a critical analysis of the bipartisan support for Obama. Since he discussed the RFO organization, I'd like to address his points.

Bevan's first point, there may be a few Republicans supportig Obama, but not a significant movement:

"But according the web site's own statistics, RFO has chapters in 11 states with 74 total subscribers - including only five in Illinois. That would hardly seem to qualify as a 'phenomenon.' "

This is correct, and of course we never claimed to be a pheonomenon, though others have used that term. By and large, if you ask your Republican friends if they support Obama, they'll either say "hell no," or they'll ask "I don't know, is he pro-life?" So, he doesn't have a ton of GOP support right now; but because of his focus on unity, and depending on how the GOP nom shakes out, he has the potential to build his bipartisan base.

Bevan's second point, GOPs only supported Obama in the Senate race because he was running against Keyes:

"In 2004 he won the Senate race with 70% of the vote, including 40% of Republicans and 74% of Independents. ... Those are impressive numbers, until you factor in that Obama was running against Alan Keyes, a man whose fiery, over the top rhetoric scared the daylights out of suburban moderate Republicans."

Regardess of the veracity of this analysis, I think Bevan would agree it bears no relevance to the presidential election. He's just providing a counterargument in case any of us GOPs try to say, "But look at his GOP support in the Senate race!!"

Bevan's third point, Hillary is a stronger candidate against Giuliani:

Obama and Clinton get the same amount of Republican support when pitted against Giuliani, and Obama actually loses more Democrats to Rudy than Clinton does. Obama's strength against Giuliani, relative to Clinton's, lies with Independents:

If you look, the GOP difference between Obama and Clinton is 1%, that's statistically insignificant. Obama does lose more Dem votes than Clinton in this poll.

But back up and look at the larger picture here. I'm going to use Rasmussen numbers, as Rasmussen has a strong record of accuracy. If you check the pairings, both Obama and Clinton would lose to Giuliani. Against every othe GOP candidate, Obama garners more support than Clinton. The difference against McCain is particularly striking.

So, in short, here's the deal. Are RFO numbers huge? No, at this stage they're not and they may never be. But again and again, the numbers indicate that Obama is a less polarizing figure and would be able to pull in more swing voters than Clinton.

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