[Vision2020] Reagan Appointee and (Recent) McCain Adviser Charles Fried Supports Obama

[Saundra Lund]

Reagan Appointee and (Recent) McCain Adviser Charles Fried Supports Obama 

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.

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."

Fried is exceptionally thoughtful and principled; his vote for Obama is
especially noteworthy.

--Cass. R. Sunstein

UPDATE: Fried writes to TNR: 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. 

Posted: Friday, October 24, 2008 12:40 PM

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/10/24/reagan-appointee
-and-recent-mccain-adviser-charles-fried-supports-obama.aspx
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http://tinyurl.com/6y33vy