DELAWARE, OHIO — Chatter bounces off the bare walls and checkered linoleum floor as Josh Pedaline and other Barack Obama supporters burn through their call sheets.
A map of Delaware County splays across a tabletop. Another table is laden with cookies, pretzels and other snacks. Volunteers sit elbow to elbow, pecking at cellphones and pitching the Illinois Democrat in advance of Ohio's March 4 primary. The scene is a typical campaign boiler room.
Except that four of the 13 dialing away are lifelong Republicans, including Pedaline, 28, who reveres Ronald Reagan and twice voted for President Bush.
"I am so sick and tired of the partisanship," Pedaline says before starting his night shift at Obama's outpost in this affluent Columbus suburb. "I don't want to be cheesy and say, 'He'll bring us all together.' But he seems like someone willing to listen to a good idea, even if it comes from a Republican."
Pedaline and other GOP renegades are part of a striking phenomenon this campaign season: They are "Obamacans," as the senator calls them, and they are surfacing in surprising numbers. Though some observers question their commitment, they are blurring -- for now, at least -- the red-blue lines that have colored the nation's politics for the last several years.
"I'm a conservative, but I have gay friends," Pedaline explains over dinner at a Columbus diner. "I have friends who don't believe in abortion, but I don't condemn them for it; I don't feel like Obama is condemning me for being a Republican."
Pedaline has some high-profile company. Susan Eisenhower, a GOP business consultant and granddaughter of President Eisenhower, has endorsed the Democratic hopeful. Colin L. Powell, who served in both Bush administrations, has hinted he may do so as well.
Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who quit the Republican Party after losing his 2006 reelection bid, endorsed Obama even though he campaigned for Chafee's opponent. Mark McKinnon, a strategist for Republican John McCain, says he will continue to back the Arizona senator but will step aside rather than work against Obama if the two meet in the fall election.
McCain also enjoys crossover support, Democrats attracted by his blunt talk and willingness to break with Republicans on campaign finance and global warming. "We know the old Reagan Democrats," McCain said aboard his campaign charter. "We'll try to get those on our side as well, Democrats who think that I'm more capable, particularly on national security issues."
