I too was a life-long Republican, but left about the time Bush-Cheney lied us into invading Iraq. Their actions were a mass betrayal of everything I ever thought that the US stood for. I now consider myself an independent.

I don't know what traditional democrats were (My mom kept saying they were trying to ruin the country), but the ones of today are a heck of a lot saner than so much of what you see on the right - Palin, Perry, Bachmann.... egads.

You can also count me as one who thinks church and state should remain separate.

The 'true Dems' of the south are now registered as 'Republicans'. Winning them over was one of the acknowledged strategies (see Southern Strategy below) the vote-poor 'money' Republicans employed to start winning elections again. That plus later tossing activist Christians the abortion bone that they are still running with.

After watching this unfold over the years, un-coincidentally, many moderate Republicans became independents. It's not so much that we left our party, but rather our party left us.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Southern strategy

In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the late-20th century Republican Party strategy of winning elections in Southern states by exploiting anti-African American racism among Southern white voters and appealing to states' rights. Though the "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery prior to the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter, many white Southern Democrats left the party following the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and desegregation.

The strategy was first adopted under future Republican President Richard Nixon in the late 1960s and continued through the latter decades of the 20th century under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.[1] The strategy was successful in achieving its goals; it led to the electoral realignment of Southern states to the Republican Party, but at the expense of losing more than 90 percent of black voters to the Democratic Party. As the 20th century came to a close, the Republican Party began trying to appeal again to black voters, though with little success.[1] During the 2000s decade, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman formally apologized for his party's use of the Southern Strategy in the previous century. Michael Steele served as the party's first African-American chairman from January 2009-January 2011.