Conservatives endorsing Obama

Kind of a follow up post to the "Newt and Susan Smith" post earlier. There have been any number of conservatives who have endorsed Obama and this week has seen Obama pick up two big ones. Most everyone knows one: Colin Powell. But perhaps more telling, is the fella to the left. Who is he? He's Charles Fried. And here's what TNR has to say about him and his endorsement:

(Fried) has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the
United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as
Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently
associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John
McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.
This week,

Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his
letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he
asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on
which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his
decision "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

After TNR reported the above, Fried wrote this to them:

I admire Senator McCain and was glad to help in his campaign, and to be listed
as doing so; but when I concluded that I must vote for Obama for the reason
stated in my letter, I felt it wrong to appear to be recommending to others a
vote that I was not prepared to cast myself. So it was more of an erasure than a
public affirmation--although obviously my vote meant that I thought that Obama
was preferable to McCain-Palin. I do not consider abstention a proper option.

This is what I was referring to earlier. Fried is one of the Goldwaters and he has had enough with the direction he sees his party heading. Listen...this isn't a lukewarm moderate here. This is a heavyweight conservative who was advising John McCain. How in the hell is Obama an extremist, when he is being endorsed by advisors to John McCain?

Even though I disagree with Fried on policy, his actions give me hope. It is not just that he has voted for my candidate. It's that by making his vote public and explaining his reasons, he is standing up and saying enough. It is conservatives like Fried who will determine how our two party system is going to look in the future. Is it going to be Liberal versus Conservative? Or Secular versus Religious? God will truly need to help us if it is the latter.