A Repub-to-Dem conversion! But not quite ...

This guy is a good friend of mine, even though I don't agree with him. He has just changed his registration to Democrat. This is from his personal weblog, which most of you would hate, and I don't want him getting flamed, so no link. Anyway, this is his rationale:

"All right, I did it.

Today I downloaded the form from the county website, and I filled it out to make an official change of party affiliation on my Pennsylvania voter registration.

In the late 80s or early 90s, I forget exactly when, I changed my affiliation from Democrat to Republican. I hadn't voted for a Democrat for President for several elections before that.

I had begun voting for the GOP because the Democrats, with whom I agreed in opposing the Vietnam War, did it out of a pro-Communist attitude I could not go along with when it came to Red advances in the New World.

Nor, to this day, do I share that outlook with them, as manifest in their opposition to aid for Columbia, their sympathy for Castro, and their hatred for General Pinochet.

For that matter, I did not think it either odd or funny when Mr. Reagan called the Soviet zone of domination an "Evil Empire."

Too, the liberal war on traditional morality and the legal apparatus that supported it, beginning with their defense of pornography and climaxing with their imposition on the country of a reign of baby-slaughter, finished the job of pushing me over the line.

But Communism is pretty much, though not entirely, a spent force as a threat to the US or any part of the New World, now, and the GOP has gone wild with a totally absurd project of revolution and war in the Muslim heartland to make Palestine safe for the Likud, and an extraordinarily savage outburst of class war at home.

In the face of what the GOP is doing I did not feel I could allow my affiliation with the Republican Party to stand. That PA voter registration card was growing more and more uncomfortable in my wallet, you see.

Certainly the Demoncrats are not by any means a perfect fit for me. I am, I suppose, what could best be described as a broadly socially conservative social democrat. I am certainly not a liberal.

But I think, given the fights being fought right now and for the foreseeable future, affiliation with the Democrats is less out of keeping with my basic convictions than affiliation with the Republicans has become.

As for the Greens and others on the Left fringe, I am not so out of sympathy with capitalism as they are, even now, by quite a long ways. And they are, I think, even more distant from me on the social issues than the bulk of Democrats are.

An anti-abortion, anti-porn, pro-gun rights, pro-death penalty Democrat? Well, I'm thinking that makes at least a little more sense, these days, than an anti-war, non-interventionist, ecologically minded (Stay out of ANWAR! Demand better gas mileage!) and strongly pro-New Deal Republican.

One in favor of more tax progressivity, for example, and complete and universal health care coverage for all Americans financed out of tax revenues from the high end of the income pyramid and savings on military expenditures realized by global US withdrawals and a big military drawdown.

Or so it seems to me right now.

I swear, it's a close thing and a tough call.

PS. You may ask what's the point, since I could have registered as an Independent. Two things.

PA has closed primaries, so registering as an Independent would have meant I couldn't vote for the Demoncrat baby-killer most preferable on other grounds, if I wished to; much less for that rare thing, an anti-abortion Democrat, should one present himself in a primary.

Second, on most domestic issues and pretty much all non-national issues, I find I support the Dems against the GOP, with a few exceptions like the death penalty and gun rights.

I repeat, I actually support them, and often wish them victory in contests with the GOP. Registering as an Independent seems too much a kind of aloof neutrality to fit the truth of things.

Last, there is the matter, beneath it all, of social class. My origins and family are all working class, and if anybody was ever properly described by that Commie phrase, "intellectual worker," I suppose I am.

I am certainly a prole, like it or not, though better paid than most. And only American bullsh*t about the realities of class could make anyone say otherwise.

Heck, ordinarily, I don't even wear a white collar! And what would that prove, anyway? Even waiters wear white shirts."

He'll be as welcome in our Party as a liberal is in today's Republican Party.

Sorry, given his position on social issues/economic, not sure why he thinks he's a Democrat. Maybe he's just scared shitless of what 4 more years of Bush Republicanism will bring. Yeah, that's probably it.

I think the fact his kind is crossing the aisle is a reason to be cheerful.

NB He got cold feet and voted Nader last election, but his vote wasn't counted. He says he's angry and there are many, many like him.

good chance his vote went to Bush. Afterall, the easiest votes to steal would be those registered as Republican.

Yes, I'm happy that your friend has seen the light....but these converts who bring their Republican thinking to our Party aren't going to find the reception particularly warm. Sorry, but it takes more than a piece of paper to ID yourself as a Democrat. I really don't think much of people who promote themselves as Democrats, then list their favorite President as Ronald Reagan and pretty much diss the entire Democratic agenda. It'd be like putting Dr. Pepper in a Pepsi can and calling it Coke. Protecting brand identity, you understand. :-)

Then look forward to another decade out of power.

I'm not suggesting you attempt to turn to the right, I'm saying you need to look at the reason intelligent people like this do things like this and then turn them into the dems of the future. This man, this good man, had demonstrated a willingness to change and you just reject him. That's sad.

Apparently, all he's changed is his his political ID. If he wants to bring all his political bullshit baggage with him, then I could give a rat's ass about his joining the Party. I'd rather lose and keep my principles than have a bunch of DINO's come in and turn us into a lighter version of the Republican Party.

His views were wrong 25 years ago.....and are probably still wrong today. He probably doesn't like the world he helped create. He enabled the colective criminals called Bush Republicans. Now he wants to bail? Boo-frickty-hoo.

you are closing your political gene pool. And you are inviting a far longer period in the wilderness.

"working class" - socially he might be conservative, but methinks he wants to vote his pocketbook because he also calls himself an "intellectual worker"

RIGHT ON!

Seriously, he's more left-wing than he thinks.

Dean's pro-gun rights stance, and the fact that he is obviously no wine sipping whimpy limo liberal, will get folks like this back vote Dem.

"Last, there is the matter, beneath it all, of social class. My origins and family are all working class, and if anybody was ever properly described by that Commie phrase, "intellectual worker," I suppose I am."

This guys a keeper! I could work with him.

Seriously, I don't think my friend is an isolated case.

They're called Reagan Democrats. We can get them back without changing one damned thing in our basic values. We just need to talk to them, not at them.

No surrenders required! These guys are volunteering to come over - their should be a warm reception, not snide comments! And nothing has to change!

There are going to be millions of "Reagan Democrats" who are going to be experiencing buyers remorse in 2006/8, they should be welcomed to the party with open arms.

He'll find himself going more and more leftward until he won't recognize his former Republican self. Such is the nature of political conversions.

That post made me think of this website that somebody else had posted on another thread: http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/

Even though social issues are my biggest reason for being progressive, I think the economic issues could be the way to grab more people. We need to put a stop to cheap labor conservatism!!

instead of pro-life. Hopefully, there are more like him in 08.

I wish the Dem Party would make it plain on the gun issue, too. One reason I figured Dean could win (if he got the nomination) was the A ratings he had rec'd as VT Gov, from the NRA.

Dean was your best shot at the Presidency, and his scream happened after you had dumped him for a talking lump of clay.

That's all I have to say, because I'm foreign, and therefore a something-eating something-monkey.

Thanks for seeing Dean in such a good light. While I voted for Kerry, I never knew where he stood and not all Americans were as ABB as I was. As for the Dean scream, that was our free press MSM (read that corporate TV news) destroying Dean by playing and replaying the now infamous clip.

Dean was the most electable, just as he was so correct about many things that even the other candidates ganged up on him for.

I liked Dean. The Guardian liked Dean. And if I was thwarted by cowards after demonstrating my superiority, I would scream too.

wouldn't it be from the mass media who purported that being opposed to the vietnam war = pro-communist - no further explanation required?

actually flipped this year. she was always a party line repub only because, I think her ex-husband was(I think he's flipped too actually, way to go dad). Understand my mother doesn't have a shred of what we consider to be the "bad" republican philosophy in her bones (two gay men her best friends, giving, lover of all people, generous of material and spiritual coin.) she took my stepson to F911 as a present last year and I think she finally saw the light. it was a lot more than that. I'd like to think my constant liberal rants over the years had a lot to do with it, but much thanks to Michael Moore anyway. She was never blind to politics or the horrors in our world but she just generally has faith in people and is far too trusting of people in authority, be it government or the local mechanic. This is how shrub suckers so many people. There are still so many that don't even grasp the concept of questioning those that lead you because of the indoctrination of "faith in your betters". It makes it even easier to be sheep when the leader assures you that he's in good with the number one shepard.

I don't understand why he thinks we are against capitalism. I don't know any liberals against capitalism, they are just against UNREGULATED capitalism. I think capitalism is great and am even trying to start my own small business, but in unregulated capitalism there is an undeniable tendency to drift toward monopoly. That's not good for small businesses. Consumer & worker protections, regulation to protect the environment and small businesses; That's my ideal capitalism and I bet most Dems agree.

Methinks this guy bought into the Rush Limbaugh description of Democrats and liberals. He seems to have a lot of misconceptions about us. I bet he would also be surprised to know how many Democrats are against gun control.