Dan Simpson: Born Republican, but not born yesterday

With Bush's foreign and economic policy a sheer disaster, my vote goes to John Kerry

Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I need to provide some personal history today so you'll know what I'm talking about.

I am virtually a lifelong Republican, partly originating from the fact that my father was one of the few Republicans ever to hold city office in the small, Democratic, Ohio town I come from. My mother was always a Republican poll-watcher.

I cast my first vote for president in 1960, for Richard Nixon, for whom I voted altogether three times. I voted for Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan twice, George H.W. Bush twice, and George W. Bush in 2000. Disgusted by Watergate and vaguely attracted by Jimmy Carter's throw-back, apparent rural cleanliness, I voted for him in 1976, and for Bill Clinton in 1996, repelled by Bob Dole. I generally vote a split ticket and am not an automatic anything, certainly not a Democrat.

snip

I believe that he came to office with the intention of transferring as much of America's wealth as possible into the hands of defense contractors such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton and the oil companies that were his background and remain his so-called "base." The result is a U.S. economy on the skids. The jobs situation is very bad, as we know especially well here in Western Pennsylvania. George W. Bush is the first American president since the Great Depression under whom our economy has slipped backward in creating jobs. The national debt -- our debt -- fueled by spending for his war and his budget deficit, has reached an inconceivable $7.4 trillion and continues to rise at $1.67 billion per day.

Bush's "base" is prospering, helped by tax cuts that are targeted to benefit the elite of our society, led by oil companies fat from what we are paying at the pump for gas and what we are about to pay for fuel this winter.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04301/402166.stm

When the elitist french were getting their heads chopped off they finally realized u cant fuck the common man too long and get away with it. There are entirely too many of us.

my father was an undecided 2000 Dubya voter who told me last week that "I don't like Bush. I don't like this war and I don't like this deficit."

That was music to my ears. My father is a devout Christian who walks the walk and he now sees that Bush is a PHARASEE.

thanks for the link! what a great read!