The argument that Obama can’t win Reagan Democrats is getting some holes punched in it.

Beverly Fanning is among the campaign donors who’ll be joining President Bush at a gala at Washington’s Ford’s Theater on Sunday night, but she says that won’t dissuade her from her current passion: volunteering for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

She isn’t the only convert. A McClatchy computer analysis, incomplete because of the difficulty matching data from various campaign finance reports, found that hundreds of people who gave at least $200 to Bush’s 2004 campaign have donated to Obama.

Among them are Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the daughter of the late GOP President Richard Nixon and wife of the late GOP President Dwight Eisenhower’s grandson, David; Connie Ballmer, the wife of Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer; Ritchie Scaife, the estranged wife of conservative tycoon Richard Mellon Scaife; and boxing promoter Don King…

”There is a large block of Republicans, particularly economic conservatives, who just feel that the Republican Party in Washington completely let them down” by failing to control spending and address other problems, [Campaign finance expert Prof. Anthony] Corrado said. “The Republicans have really given these donors no reason to give.”

Along with notions that Obama won’t appeal to non-Neocon Republicans, also at risk are assumptions that McCain will take all his party’s votes. Unless he finds a way to distance himself from the Bush White House, and finds it soon, he’s carrying some heavy Samsonites.