Obama Has GOP Crossover Appeal

Here's one race where Barack isn't trailing Hillary: the one for GOP defectors. In a recent poll, Iowa Republicans chose the freshman senator as their third-favored presidential candidate (after Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani), Salon reports. And in recent GOP focus groups, Obama’s crossover appeal was more than twice that of any of his Dem rivals.

"Hillary and Edwards have no crossover voters," a GOP consultant tells Salon. Obama’s campaign is responding to the trend, featuring a Republican state lawmaker in its first Iowa ads. But if his crossover appeal might work some magic in the general election, it's not necessarily enough to get him the nomination. Dems still think the Hillary has a better shot. (More Barack Obama stories.)