First, I want to be clear that I am not trying to make the following argument:
“That all Republicans and/or conservatives should vote for Obama because these particular Republicans/conservatives have endorsed him.”
I would never make an argument in favor of a candidate solely on the basis of one or even multiple endorsements.
Rather, I compiled this list of endorsements for Barack Obama in an effort to make this argument:
"That these well respected conservative writers, journalists, professors, and former members of the Reagan and Bush I Administrations would never have endorsed Obama had there been any truth to even one of the numerous dishonest attacks leveled at Obama over the past few months."
With that, here is a (still incomplete) list of endorsements for Barack Obama for President from numerous well-respected and self-identified Conservatives and Republicans (and in some cases Libertarians):
Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, 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. On October 24, 2008, Prof. Fried announced that he had voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot.
Larry Hunter, a lifelong Republican and self-described supply-side conservative, Mr. Hunter worked in the Reagan White House, was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, Mr. Hunter helped write the Republican Contract with America. He served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp's Empower America.
Ken Adelman, a lifelong conservative Republican; was hired by Donald Rumsfeld at the Office of Economic Opportunity under Nixon; was assistant to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld under Ford, served as Reagan’s director of arms control, and joined the Defense Policy Board for Rumsfeld’s second go-round at the Pentagon, in 2001.
Ken Duberstein, President Reagan's Deputy Chief of Staff (both terms), as well as both the Assistant and the Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs (1981-83). Prior to joining the Reagan Administration Mr. Duberstein was Vice President and Director of Business-Government Relations of the Committee for Economic Development. Mr. Duberstien was also Deputy Under Secretary of Labor during the Ford Administration and Director of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the U.S. General Services Administration.
Col. Andrew J. Bacevich - A self-described "Catholic conservative," graduated from West Point in 1969 and served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1971. Col. Bacevich taught at West Point, holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomacy from Princeton University and has published writings in a number of traditionally conservative American political magazines. Col. Bacevich was the director of Boston University's Center for International Relations (from 1998 to 2005) and is currently a Professor of International Relations within that school.
Professor Doug Kmiec - An American legal scholar, served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (U.S. Assistant Attorney General) for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, a position previously held by U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia in the Nixon and Ford administration. He is currently a Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University's School of Law. Professor Kmiec is the former Dean and St. Thomas More Professor of the law school at The Catholic University of America (2001-2003). He has written three books on the American Constitution, a two-volume legal treatise, related books, and hundreds of published articles and essays. He writes the Faith and Precedent column for the Catholic News Service.
Bill Ruckelshaus, a prominent Republican who served in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations. Mr. Ruckelshaus served as the first head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970, was subsequently acting director of the FBI and then Deputy Attorney General of the United States. In 1983 he was appointed interim director of the EPA by President Ronald Reagan.
Francis Fukuyama - Was a key Reagan Administration contributor to the formulation of the Reagan Doctrine. Mr. Fukuyama is an important figure in the rise of Neoconservativism. He was active in the Project for a New American Century think tank starting in 1997, and as a member co-signed the organization's letter recommending that President Bill Clinton support Iraqi insurgencies in the overthrow of then-President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. Beginning in 2002, he began to distance himself from the neoconservative agenda under the Bush Administration, citing its overly militaristic basis and embrace of unilateral armed intervention, particularly in the Middle East.
Larry Pressler - former Republican Senator from South Dakota, the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the United States Senate. Mr. Pressler served in the Vietnam War in the U.S. Army from 1966 until 1968. He was elected to the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1979. He was a Senator from South Dakota from 1979 to 1997, and was chairman of the Commerce Committee from 1995 to 1997. Mr. Pressler has noted that his vote for Barack Obama for President represents the first time he has ever voted for a Democrat.
Jeffrey Hart - was a speechwriter first for Ronald Reagan, when he was Governor of California, then speechwriter for Richard Nixon when we became the presidential nominee. He became a senior editor at National Review in 1969, a position he held until recently. His written endorsement of Obama, titled, Obama is the Real Conservative, Hart wrote, "one thing I know is that both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed (with Obama's 2002 speech opposing the Iraq War). Both were prudential and successful conservatives. But all the organs of the conservative movement followed Bush over the cliff—as did John McCain."
Additional Republicans, Conservatives, and Libertarians who have endorsed Obama:
Christopher Buckley, Peggy Noonan, Susan Eisenhower, Jim Leach, Lowell Weicker, Linwood Holton, Jim Whitaker, Wick Allison, and Colin Powell.
Endorsements from Conservative Newspapers
At least 50 papers that endorsed Bush in 2004 have decided to endorse Obama this year.
Including:
The Houston Chronicle
The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Texas. As of March 2008, it is the ninth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States.
On October 19, 2008, the paper endorsed Barack Obama, the first Democrat to ever be endorsed by the newspaper since 1964, in which it endorsed fellow Texan Lyndon B. Johnson.
The Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune endorsed Barack Obama Friday, marking the first time in the paper's 161-year history it has backed a Democrat for president.
The Denver Post
The Denver Post, which had backed George W. Bush in 2004 and is owned by Republican-leaning William Dean Singleton, endorsed Barack Obama for president on October 17, 2008.
The Salt Lake City Tribune
The second largest newspaper in one of the most conservative states in the country, which endorsed Bush in 2004, endorsed Barack Obama for President on October 21, 2008.
The Record
The Record, a Stockton, California newspaper, endorsed Barack Obama for president, ending a 72-year record of endorsing only Republicans for the office.
The Record, which did not endorse a presidential candidate in 1992, has endorsed Republicans in every other White House election since 1940, when it went for Wendell Willkie over President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
For complete list of all newspaper endorsements (including the 50 papers that switched from supporting Bush in 2004 to endorsing Obama this year), please see the Editor & Publisher summary here.
