He keeps saying he won't change parties, but I suspect he will eventually. I think he's testing the waters now.
If he changes parties he outlives his usefulness to the campaign.
Miller is retiring after his term expires in January anyways.
In his own words, he does not even buy green bannanas (Age joke, have to hear him say it for effect). Hes never going to run for anything again, and does more good as a Democrat backing conservatives than as a republican..
Leaving the democRats is like leaving the "Scientologists." And for the same reasons.
The Democrat Party of today is nothing like the Democrat Party of years past, as Senator Miller has pointed out. If you were from the south, you had to be a Democrat. Senator Miller's Democrat Party consisted of good, hard working people who were generous and willing to help out a neighbor. They went to church and sunday school and their children were polite and said "yes sir" and "no sir". They weren't involved in unions. They grumbled about high taxes and government intervention in their lives. And then one day they realized that their party had left them. And they all became Republicans. It happened all over the South. The only Democrats left in Texas are "yellow dog Democrats" They view their world through their yellow tinted prisim and are unwilling to see the world any other way.
Zell is retiring from the Senate and he's old enough that his political career is over. He's said before that he won't switch for the simple reason that even this turn in the Senate only occurred because his arm was twisted.
After Zell Miller retires from the Democrat party he needs a position in the administration.
I wouldn't object for Minetta to go, there a few others that need replacing as well.
At a bare minimum he needs an ambasadorship, preferably to France or Germany. Now wouldn't that be sticking a finger in their eye.