A Dallas friend recently joked that he was thinking of answering his telephone, "Republicans for Obama."

If he does, he might find company, especially among moderate Republicans. A surprising number of that species I've talked with say they might vote for Barack Obama, if he gets the Democratic nomination.

"Surprising" because the National Journal reports that Barack Obama had the Senate's most liberal voting record in 2007. This man is not even a moderate Democrat.

Yet his message about racial conciliation generally reminds some Republicans of their own party's roots in the fight against slavery. His speeches and intellect remind them of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. And they are tired of the Bush years' divisiveness. I thought about that last point as I wandered around Reunion Arena before Obama spoke to a big Dallas crowd last week. In an eerie, cultish way, person after person I interviewed talked about "believing in Obama." Then, they'd go on about how he'd unify the country.

The more I heard this longing for unity, the more it hit me that President Bush and Karl Rove set up this phenomenon. Bush pledged to do what Obama's talking about doing: changing how Washington works.

Bush built broad coalitions in his first term on education, Medicare and Afghanistan. But when you put together the Iraq war with the play-to-the-base strategy Rove emphasized in the run-up to the 2004 election, Bush lost the ability to build many coalitions in his second term.

And, together, they created this thirst for a uniter.

I'm a unity guy, but the Bush years have shown that wishing for something is easier than making it happen. For example, when you move beyond Obama's racial appeals, there's not much for a fiscally conservative/national security moderate to support. It would require a triumph of the heart over the mind.

Look at the Obama agenda:

n Unlike Democrat Paul Tsongas in 1992, Obama says almost nothing about modernizing entitlement programs so they don't hoist a huge debt onto future generations. He even wants the government to expand the Medicare prescription drug benefit and would not change the way government calculates Social Security benefits.

I wonder what he plans to say to all those Barack-crazy 20-somethings when they wake up one day and realize they will have a $10 trillion debt to pay off, thanks largely to our failure to adjust programs like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.

n On trade, Obama is running away from the Bill Clinton/New Democrat agenda of opening markets abroad. Although he says he's not opposed to new trade agreements, he emphasizes putting new restrictions around them.

He also says the recent Central American Free Trade Agreement was a mistake. And he rails against the North American Free Trade Agreement, which raises this question: If he thinks we have an immigration crisis now, what does he think it would be like if NAFTA and its precursor had not helped birth job-generating maquiladora factories in Juarez, Matamoros and elsewhere along the border?

n He would pull troops out of Iraq starting next year. A sure-fire applause line, but what will he do if the Iraq trend line holds up?

Almost everyone agrees the military surge has tamped down violence. Last week, Shiite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr extended his cease-fire. And the Iraqi government just agreed to share power among regions and to give a form of amnesty to former Baath Party members.

Iraq remains difficult, a point U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker emphasized recently to a group of columnists and editorial writers. But, as he pointed out, Shiites and Sunnis are forming new political coalitions. If we walk away, what happens?

These are issues that Obama and his advisers should think about. Republicans like former Rep. Jim Leach compliment him for his fresh ideas and energy. And it's not inconceivable that he could win people like Roger Blackmar, a Dallas technology executive who attended the Obama rally.

The staunch Republican voted for George W. Bush twice but said it's not impossible that he could vote for Obama if the Democrat tones down his class warfare and looks strong on defense. At this point, though, Blackmar sees him as a standard liberal, like the National Journal reported.

Obama is good at unifying the left and those tired of the Bush administration. Some in the GOP are willing to give him a chance. Will he give them one?

William McKenzie is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News.