Leaving the GOP

[Lainey]

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all...ult/1314907779

Very sobering, and I thought accurate, reflections from a now former Republican.

[redfox]

Yay. My father, a lifelong R, retired attorney, and kind, caring man left during Bush's second term. He refers to Mr. Bush as The Troglodyte... cannot even utter his name. The R's replaced sane and decent men like my father with lunatics like Ms. Bachmann & her supporters, IMHO.

[Catwoman]

Two sides to every story...I always wonder what happened to tradtional democrats, who have been replaced with Saul Alinsky-bots, training lackeys to trade votes for handouts, ALWAYS play the racecard, support union-organized thuggery, engage in fear-mongering among seniors over social security and medicare and hate Evangelical Christians...not like the true Dems of the South I grew up knowing

[iris lily]

Yay. My father, a lifelong R, retired attorney, and kind, caring man left during Bush's second term. He refers to Mr. Bush as The Troglodyte... cannot even utter his name. The R's replaced sane and decent men like my father with lunatics like Ms. Bachmann & her supporters, IMHO.

I've seen Michelle Bachmann speak during two debates now and she seemed reasonable to me during both events.

[Gina]

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.

[Zigzagman]

I watched the GOP debate tonight and it was really very scary to me. I have never seen or heard such extreme people vying to run for President. IMO, the only two that showed any measure of sanity at all were Huntsman and Romney.

If any of these people are successful it will be an environmentally catastrophic. They have absolutely no regard for our air/water or health and define success based solely on continued war and consumption. We you hear people seriously talking about whether evolution is real, that climate change not real, and the roar from the crowd in response to just a question about the Death Penalty it makes you wonder who these people are.

Frightening.

Peace

[redfox]

Two sides to every story...I always wonder what happened to tradtional democrats, who have been replaced with Saul Alinsky-bots, training lackeys to trade votes for handouts, ALWAYS play the racecard, support union-organized thuggery, engage in fear-mongering among seniors over social security and medicare and hate Evangelical Christians...not like the true Dems of the South I grew up knowing

What exactly is "the race card"? I have never understood this phrase.

[JaneV2.0]

I thought about this when former Senator Mark O. Hatfield died recently. I voted for him repeatedly when I lived in Oregon, along with Senator Packwood. Both were staunchly anti-war. My mother was a life-long Republican until Ronald Reagan finally pushed her over the edge and she changed her registration. I could happily vote today for the likes of Sen. Hatfield or Dwight Eisenhower. We thought Barry Goldwater was crazy back in the day--in fact the stock reply to his campaign slogan "In your heart, you know he's right" was "In your guts, you know he's nuts." But he looks statesmanlike next to today's Republican lineup, IMNHO.

[Zigzagman]

What exactly is "the race card"? I have never understood this phrase.

An example would be when at the Texas GOP Convention they were passing out buttons asking if we can still call it the White House if Obama is elected?



Peace

[Gina]

An example would be when Rush Limbaugh sings Barack the Magic Negro, or rants that 'we need to put this guy back in his place'.