Reply #3: I've not seen Republicans shifting, but I've seen independents shifting.

[jobycom]

I have a friend who has never voted for a Democrat before. He's not a hardcore Republican, and not a conservative, but he's always voted the way his daddy told him to decades ago, which was Republican.

He dislikes Bush greatly, and that made him look at other candidates than Republicans. But his experience is so limited he doesn't really see things the way a partisan would. For instance, he hates the Clintons, but hates McCain and Giuliani, so he had narrowed his vote down to Fred Thompson or Barack Obama. For the life of me, even after asking about it, I can't understand that combo.

By the time Fred had bailed, my friend had fallen in love with Obama. And I mean love. He can't see any flaws in Obama, he sees Obama the way most people see their spouses just before they propose. So he's planning to vote for Obama. This and his distaste for Bush (and we are in Texas) makes him dislike McCain intensely.

When the Wright story first broke, this guy was almost in tears, as though he'd been cheated on by a trusted spouse. He told me he felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach, he was so outraged by Wright's comments. Even though I'm a Clinton supporter (and frankly really don't like Obama), I told him the story was nothing, that Obama's preacher was just using fiery rhetoric like most preachers, and even though I thought he should support Clinton instead of Obama, he shouldn't hold Obama's preacher's words against him. So he forgave Obama, and is happy again.

If Clinton wins, he'll vote Clinton, because he's so turned off by Bush that it flows over to McCain, and because Clinton's issues are identical to Obama's, anyway, and he's learned to love the issues (the ones he understands, anyway) as well as the man. But he won't be happy with Clinton.

You'd be tempted to think he must not be that bright, with the Thompson thing and then the Wright thing (not to mention a history of Bush and Reagan votes), but he's actually rather intelligent. Politics has just never been his thing before.

So I've seen Bush supporters (not just this one) so turned off that they are planning to vote Democrat, but the hardcore idealogues of the Republican Party are still hardcore ideologues who will vote for a Republican no matter what happens.