The Beginning

How is it that I got here...A leftie now voting for Republicans? How was it that someone whose first vote for president was for one Barry Commoner of the Citizens Party in the Reagan/Carter/Anderson election of 1980 voted for Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton twice, Gore and finally voted for, yes, George W. Bush.

I could say that it began after 9/11. But my journey began long before that. My story is really more about a lifelong ambivalence about the left and what it believes.

While I was at Duke, there was a big controversy -- a group of leftists (self-identified communists, actually), held a Death to the Klan rally. But something not-so-funny happened. The Klan came with guns and it turned out to be a Death to the Communists rally. It's been almost 30 years, so I don't remember the details, but I do remember feeling little sympathy for the Communist group. No, they didn't deserve to die, but they were sufficiently provocative in a way that disturbed me.

There were lots of kumbayah rallies and protests. I held hands with my fellow lefties and other students. But it didn't feel right.

Around my junior or senior year, a grad student name Les showed up -- a big fan of the Sandinistas -- and who made sure we pronounced Nee-ca-ra-gua correctly. Something wasn't right about him -- as well as the fact that he became invovled with a woman I was interested in...but I digress.

I faithfully voted Democrat. Jesse Helms revolted me. But after college, I got a job teaching at a private school in North Carolina. I actually worked with people who voted for Helms and were not racists. It didn't change my mind, but it opened my mind. How is it that this characterization of Helms didn't match some of my new friends.

Fast forwarding through my 20s & 30s. Without a thought, Dukakis. Check. Clinton. Check. Gore. Check. But my mindset began changing during Clinton's second term. Having to explain to my 9-year-old was a blow job was was hard enough...but listening to my liberal friends defend someone who clearly was a sexual harrasser in the least and a sexual predator at worst amazed me. Christopher Hitchens became one of the first on the left to turn on Clinton -- in a sense, I found this liberating.

But the Clinton years changed me. I hated what the vast-right wing conspiracy did -- the constant scandalizing, investigations, etc. Done in an ugly way, that along with Clinton disgraced not only the office of the presidency and the congress.

I vowed at this point that I, as I did in the Reagan years, would not hate the next president of the other party. I might now love him or her, but I would respect the president as the choice of the people.

I voted for Gore, but I wasn't sorry to see him lose. I remember watching his sigh loudly and arrogantly during one of the debates and thought -- this is where he is going to lose the election. Clinton at least appeared to be empathetic with the average Joe. Gore? He thought he was smarter than the averge Joe.

I thought the Democrats behavior during Chad-gate was disgraceful. The fact is that is Mr. Smarty-pants Gore has won his own freaking state, Tennessee, then Florida would be irrelevant.
But 9/11 really changed me. The left wants to minimize the threat that Islamofascists are to the west. Perhaps it is the Jew in me, but I see it as the same fight that Israel faces. We sat on our hands during the Clinton years while we were attacked around the world. That fact emboldened terrorists, Islamic fascists, whatever you want to call them.

After spending years as a peacenik during the 80s and 90s, the second Intifada taught me that the Palestinians/Arabs don't want peace with Israel. I cried when Rabin and Arafat shook hands at the White House. I thought the button I had on my knapsack in grad school, with Palestinian and Israeli flags, "One land, two Peoples" or something like that, would actually bear fruit.

How wrong I was. They are in a waiting game -- they will keep their own people in refugee camps to breed the hatred that fuels the conflict. They are waiting for the opportunity to destroy Israel. A state on the West Bank? Please. Look what happened in Gaza when Israel withdrew. Petrodollars could have built a new Hong Kong or Singapore.

I thought Bush's respond to 9/11 was the right one. But I wasn't thrilled with the Iraq war. I thought the real battle would/should be with Iran.

I decided to not vote for Kerry when he saluted the Democratic convention and "reported for duty". Here was a man who rose in politics because he led the Vietnam Veterans against the War, who campaign for president was launched riding on his laurels as a "war hero." Swiftboating or not, Kerry was and remains a phony.

I was left with the choice of voting for Bush or writing in someone. I seriously considered voting for McCain as a write-in, but then I decided that my protest against the Democrats would be to vote for Bush. I didn't like doing it, but I remain convinced it was the right path.

You can say a lot of things about Bush, but at least he is steadfast in his beliefs. Despite the criticism, he stuck to his guns and we are now winning the war in Iraq. We will not turn tail and run like we were forced to do in Vietnam. Maybe that war was wrong as well, but our leaving left millions upon millions in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to the clutches of Communism. It was our shame as a country that we abandoned our commitments.

So I voted for Bush. My liberal, mostly Jewish friends, "forgave" me for this. F_ck them. I need no forgiveness from a bunch of smug, arrogant people. For the first time in my life, I actually THOUGHT about who to vote for. I strugged for this vote more than I ever struggled about any vote. In the past, I pulled for a Democrat like a gambling addict pulls the slot machine. No thought. None whatsoever. It was easy. Democrat good. Republican bad.

What's funny is -- is people assume that if you are no longer a Democrat, you are a dumb, racist, redneck Republican. It's black and white. There is no gray.

So here I am. Former liberal Democrat. I voted for Bush and will vote for McCain. I will vote for Mark Warner for Senate.

I actually voted in the 1980 Republican primary for McCain. I think he is an admirable man. He has pissed off his party. He works across the aisle. I also think that a Democratic President Obama and a democratic congress will be a middle class nightmare. The fact is, you can talk about taxing the rich all you want. The rich have accountants. I don't. My taxes will go up. And for what? For some congressman to earmark boondoggles for their district., for some bureaucrat to decide my health care choices. No way.

There it is. The Random Electron.