AL Gov. Bob Riley- A Democrat trapped in a Republican's Body?

Since this guy took office, I've struggled with what this guy's really about. He seems to be something that I widely thought of as unthinkable-a progressive Republican. His policies actually seem to make a lot of sense, so why is this guy a Republican?

Here's an intriguing article

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030908&s=trb090803

might be pretty conservative on social issues, i think. I'm a strong supporter of his tax plan, though.

I was being sarcastic but hes not being a GOP prick at least Dob you know. I though I am a southerner consider myself more of a yankee, and besides I am not much of one being here in the old dominion.

Rove would like to create today. Taking things to the extreme, as Republicans have today, tends to bring out the TRs, and McCains, Jeffords, etc.

in each of the Deep South, the Pacific NW and New England, and you can smack me upside the head with a two by four all day and I won't be able to tell you how or why municipal/county/state Dem and Repub parties make sense with the others.

Mike Foster in LA was a right-wing Dem, switched to the GOP in the middle of the election, won, spewed acres of GOP anti-tax bullshit, bought into and endorsed all the national-GOP anti-tax bullshit, then sat down and tried to get a respectable tax reform package passed, while raising state spending on higher ed, got HAMMERED by the state GOP and the business lobby, then smiles like he's in a happy coma and spews the regular GOP bullshit afterward.

The reverse in Mass. The state legislature is all Dems, but they get elected on no-new-taxes pledges, half of them are at least as socially conservative as any Southern Republican (except Catholic instead of Baptist) and the rest are more Left-wing than a Midwest Green.