Republican former Rep. Jim Leach will cross party lines to endorse presumed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama Tuesday, according to an Obama campaign advisory notice.
Leach, who voted against authorizing military action in Iraq in 2002 and called for a withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2003, will be joined on a conference call by former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who had already made his preference for Obama known, and Rita Hauser, a former intelligence adviser to President Bush.
One of the most liberal Republicans in the House during a 30-year career representing eastern Iowa, Leach was unseated by Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack in 2006 in a race decided by fewer than 6,000 votes.
Leach's penchant for bucking Republican orthodoxy -- his party unity and presidential support scores were always among the lowest in the GOP -- cost him dearly when term limits forced him to give up his Banking Committee chairmanship in 2001.
He was passed over for the gavel of the International Relations Committee, which went instead to Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, a Republican stalwart who had less seniority on the panel.
Leach began his Capitol Hill career in 1965 as an aide to future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who was then a congressman from Illinois, and later became a foreign service officer before resigning in protest of the "Saturday Night Massacre" firing of the special prosecutor investigating Watergate.
Leach did not immediately return an e-mailed request for comment on his endorsement of Obama.
