Hervé van der Straeten

I was raised a Republican by a failmy that was once 98% Republican(but it's changing and several voted for Obama as they couldn'tstomach Sarah Palin). I was a member of YAF in college, where my roomie was a nephew of a pastnational chairman of the RNC. I workedthe floor of the 1960 Republican National Convention for BarryGoldwater at the Chicago Stockyards. However, in 1965, whenstrategist Pat Buchanan advised his boss, Richard M. Nixon, to goafter the disaffected Southern racists like Strom Thurmond, toswitch to the Party of Lincoln , I had had enough. Lyndon Johnsonwith the great help of Sen. Ev Dirksen, a Republican, passed theCivil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the right thing to do. But theGOP has since lost wise leaders like Dirksen and have becomeextremely partisan. With the Democratic party then cleansed ofracists, I never felt I betrayed the GOP, as the party had left me,not I had left the party. When the neocons and religious fundiescontinued to hijack the Republican Party under Raygun, I neverlooked back nor ever doubted I had made a mistake leaving the GOP.Face it, the Republicans are a dying party, havelost most of the nation's population except for the Solid Southwhich is even beginning to crack in places like NC and VA.