Behind Enemy Lines: Cross-Party Speakers at Political Conventions—PICTURES

By National Journal Staff

Updated: August 28, 2012 | 11:31 a.m.
August 28, 2012 | 6:00 a.m.

There’s nothing like a speaker from the opposite party to bring a party's crossover appeal home. That effect will be on display on Tuesday night when Artur Davis, the former Democratic congressman from Alabama, takes the stage at the convention. Here's a look at other notable crossover speakers at national political conventions.

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Artur Davis, the former Democratic congressman from Alabama, will take the stage at the convention. Davis seconded Obama’s nomination in 2008, and he had even crossed paths with the future president at Harvard Law School. But he bucked the president on the administration’s signature health care law. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Jeane Kirkpatrick, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, tore into her party in 1984, dubbing them the “San Francisco Democrats." (AP Photo/Keystone/Laurent Gillieron)

Former Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, addressed the crowd at the Democratic National Convention in 2008, where he backed Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

In 2008, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman backed John McCain at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

In 2004, Zell Miller, the Democratic senator from Georgia, was tapped to be keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention in New York City, where he ripped into his party’s candidate, Sen. John Kerry. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor of Florida, will be speaking in Charlotte, N.C., for the Democrats. ((AP Photo/Mark Mainz))

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