Reply #26: And I'm an Atwater-trained former College Republican

[Oak2004]

once considered as having a promising future in the GOP by the right wing of the party (and oh, known from the beginning by everyone in the party to be gay, just like many other CRs I knew... but we all know about that little GOP "secret" now).

What changed? Around the time of Reagan's victory I had a crisis of conscience -- I realized I had compromised far too many of my values to be able to continue to ally myself with the right of the party (where I most certainly *did not* belong, having solid roots in liberalism until I fell in with the CRs). I continued on, working with liberal and moderate Republicans, trying to fight the tide of extremism within the party.

In 1994 I all but gave up on the party -- voices of moderation and of social concern had been definitively silenced at a national level-- though I continued to work for local GOP candidates in our little enclave of Northeast Republican moderation. Even there, though, my options were growing fewer and fewer, until there were no more Republicans at any level I could, in good conscience, support.

My last act as a Republican was to vote against George W. Bush in the 2000 primary. I'm proud to have been able to vote against the man three times, but sad that the man and his ex-CR minions have been able to perpetrate so much damage on America.

Although I'm not a Democrat, in the sense of considering myself a member of the Democratic Party, neither am I a Republican, and I see no hope but the Democratic Party (at the national level anyway) for restoring full democracy and undoing the economic, military, and social damage inflicted nationally and globally by my former party.