People change their political views all the time. Many switch parties.
Some do it for strategic reasons, because they know the other side is rising. Some do it based on specific issues, like Dennis Miller and others who say they became Republicans "because of 9-11."
In my own case, I became a Democrat during the Reagan years. I had grown up as a Republican, I even interned at Human Events in 1974. But I always considered myself a small government, small "l" libertarian. I cast my first vote for Gerald Ford.
Things changed for me with the rise of the Moral Majority, with the nanny state of "just say no," with the rise of the pro-slavery gangs who called themselves "right to life." Democrats started representing small government to me, people who were willing to let me live my life, and let my friends live theirs, without condemnation, without threats, without calling the cops.
Point is it’s important to listen to the sounds made by party-switchers and to their numbers. So this post, by John Cole (above), is well worth hearing. His break with the party he has served most of his life seems total. He calls Republicans "drooling retards":
A bunch of bedwetting, loudmouth, corrupt, hypocritical, and incompetent boobs with a mean streak a mile long and no sense of fair play or proportion.
That’s not the kind of statement you make when you’re planning on coming back.
During normal times, when a political Thesis and its AntiThesis are
established in the electorate, it’s important to give party-switchers a
way-station, to lean a bit their way. John Anderson was a way station
for me. Ross Perot was a way station for others. Sometimes, as in
Perot’s case, loyalties switch back, from the way-station back to home
base. Thus Clinton couldn’t get 50% in his 1996 re-election. Thus,
George W. Bush.
At times of crisis, when the old assumptions die, it’s vital that the rising tide not back down for the party-switchers’ benefit. People like Frank Sinatra
and Sammy Davis Jr. went straight from Kennedy to Nixon, and stayed
there for the rest of their lives. Many of those who are switching now,
over corruption, over Iraq, over deficits, or over terrorism, are going directly from
Bush to Edwards or Obama.
That’s one point the mainstream media ignores when it analyzes current
horse race polls. John Edwards does best of all the Democrats there
because he is the most overtly liberal, not because he’s white and
male. If Elizabeth Edwards were the candidate, she would do just as
well. Had Harvey Gantt been elected to the Senate from North Carolina
in 1998, he would be doing just as well.
When you get a mass of people switching parties and doing it completely, you give them red meat, not gristle. You give them scotch, straight, and hold the chaser.
It’s what they need.
