Posted on 11/13/2010 7:00:00 AM PST by paul in cape
In a sign of things to come, perhaps the first in a wave of Democrats across the country to switch to Republican has begun. (OK maybe not the first, but you get the idea).
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — A Democratic legislator from Aroostook County has announced that he has switched his affiliation to the Republican Party.
Michael Willette of Presque Isle, who was elected to a second term in the Legislature on Nov. 2 as a Democrat, told the Bangor Daily News on Friday that he has labored over his decision to switch since he couldn’t convince himself to support a tax reform proposal earlier this year that was supported almost exclusively by Democrats.
He also didn’t support other major Democrat-led initiatives: enactment of a 2008 law that allowed same-sex marriage as well as a bill that would have required businesses to offer paid sick time to employees during last year’s outbreak of the H1N1 flu. Neither measure nor the tax reform package ended up as law.
“It seemed like every time something major to the Democratic Party came up I just couldn’t vote for it,” said Willette during an interview Friday with the Bangor Daily News. “They were just bills that, to me, didn’t make sense and wouldn’t have worked for my district.”
Willette’s switch brings the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to 78 versus 72 Democrats.
(Excerpt) Read more at new.bangordailynews.com ...
Your “point” is useless. The Republican party, too, was far different 40 years ago.
So what?
Get off your high horse.
Sorry, but I was around for the whole transition, and aware of my surroundings too, so I can’t claim ignorance. As a boy, I watched the TV in a store window the day JFK was shot. The Democrats were more conservative then than now, but only because culture constrained them. We who were conservative way back then, when it wasn’t cool, still saw them as pulling hard in the wrong direction. The Democrats, with their inherent susceptibility to Wilsonian progressivism, have long been a corrupting influence, since well before FDR, and I am surprised that you, with your assertion of other’s ignorance of these things, would make such a claim yourself. Furthermore, Reagan did change his positions over time on some key conservative issues, even after he became a Republican, because these transitions don’t always happen all at once.
And I categorically deny any intent to deceive, and I think you should withdraw so reckless a charge. What I’m saying is simply this: We should trust, but we should also verify. I don’t want RINO-corruption any more than you do. Seriously, I’m from Illinois, and I know how bad it can be. But I do want a constitutional freedom to be observed here, the freedom of association. If someone has a conservative epiphany, and sincerely so, we want that person fighting with us, not against us. Think Othello, not chess. Wars of attrition are losing propositions for both sides. We need to claim new human territory, not just new geographical territory, if we are to win the longer conflict.
Your original post said “once a democrat, always a democrat.” It didnt say “nowadays, once a democrat, always a democrat.”
Quit trying to pretend like you meant something you didnt say. Plus, how do we convert people if we wont allow former democrats to join our side?
What makes you think Post 53 is the be-all end-all on the subject? You keep referencing it like it’s the encyclopedia or something.
Well said and thanks for clearing things up.
Exactly, trust, but verify.
I'm not the one(s) who made the false comparison, you and others were, I simply pointed out the flaw in it.
Show me exactly where I pretending like I meant something I didn't say. You can't. To do so you'd have to prove I was the one that made the comparison first. Obviously I didn't fall into that trap, you and others did.
Thanks for putting that fact on the table for others to see. The comparison that others made between the Democrats of that time to today's Democrats simply isn't accurate.
Seriously, I’m from Illinois, and I know how bad it can be.
So am I, welcome to the People's Soclialist RepubliK of Illannoyed.
If someone has a conservative epiphany
The same way Arlen Specter did, only to go back to the Democrat party to try and survive politically? No thank you. If they truly had an epiphany, they should stay in their own party and clean up their own mess, not drag it into the Republican Party. I don't believe for one second that any of these Democrats really gives a rats behind about advancing Conservative ideas, rather I think they're all about surviving the next election so they don't have to go back to the private sector and find a real job!
That's an incorrect assumption.
That is just one of the many reasons I don't trust the Republican any more than I trust the Democrats. One party with two faces.
Yeah whatever...
In Maine. the Rs haven't been in control since the early 70s.
In the recent past, there were party line votes on most all significant issues, illustrating a clear difference between the parties.
I'm pretty sure the Northern Maine democrats don't realize that the average RAT legislator is a communist. They likely they think they're voting for a JFK democrat.
I proved it in the post that you responded to. You said once a dem, always a dem. Then, when you were proven wrong, you pretended like you meant that “in modern times” once a dem, always a dem.
You were wrong on the first thing you said and tried to pretend like it meant something else when called out, then claimed that people who argued against your first point were actually arguing against a point you didnt make until later.
Again, I feel your pain with respect to the risk of getting “Spectered,” but I just can’t go with you on generalizing to an absolute prohibition.
More importantly, what do we do when some pol does claim conversion? Believing them blindly would be foolishness, true, but asking them to stay Democrats would be like asking (let’s see, what can I use here that won’t be inflammatory) a convert to Limbaugh to continue listening only to Olberman. If it’s a real conversion, you’re asking them to do the impossible, you’re asking them to do what would drive a decent person insane. That party can’t be cleaned up, and it’s no good asking those who want out to do it. The best thing that could happen to the Democrat Party, and to us, is for it to be reduced to permanent, miniscule third party status for lack of attendance, and for that to happen we need people to leave it.
As for my so-called “admission” that democrats of the past were more conservative then than now, I wish to also keep on the table that I only meant that in a relative sense. Kennedy was something of an exception to the larger stream of proto-socialist leanings in the party as whole. My dad was fighting this stuff, in the strongest of democrat strongholds, Chicago, even before I was born. His dealings with Jesse Jackson and Mayor Dailey the Elder were sufficient to convince me these folks would stoop to whatever vile deed it took to subjugate people and grow government, with no regard for principles or the Constitution.
So, is it really fair to expect one person to fix all that? I don’t think so. Sometimes, like Martin Luther, you’ve just got to take your stand, break old ties, and let the chips fall where they may.
One more thing. I don’t accept the idea that people can’t change for the better. Neither did Ronald Reagan. Optimism is the wind beneath the wings of conservatism, the belief that if you sell the better product, or make the better argument, you can win people to your side, and make things better for everyone. That’s what I believe, and I’m sticking to it.
The Maine is plainly pain for Obama.
“By George, he’s got it. “
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