[ancientart]

Well, there is another category: Democratic conservatives with lots of courage. While conservatives (particularly pro-lifers) have been driven out of the national Democratic party, there are some states where some of the most consistently convervative and most strongly prolife elected officials are Democrats. Believe or not, South Dakota is one of those states. Unfortunately (and obviously), these aren't the Democrats we end up sending to Washington, and I do sometimes wonder why our conservative Democrats don't give up and join the Republicans. I think, however, that they still have some hope that their party will come around--at least on certain issues. I was really amused at one campaign event to watch a multi-term Democrat (Rep. Al Waltman) read the riot act to a fellow Democrat who was less-than-solidly prolife. I sure wish we had someone like Al representing us in Washington rather than Johnson and Daschle. A gutsy guy!

[hawkins]

hmmm, sounds to me like that example would fit into classification 6) Diehards - They want to change their party back to a conservative one, despite the chance it won't happen.