[Route66]

This happening in Georgia is actually quite a bit different from your usual party jumping. My father's people were from Georgia. Democrats from Georgia are traditionally VERY conservative.
I was a Democrat well into my adult life. Even after I grew up, I told myself it was to try to vote in the most conservative candidates. One day I woke up and admitted to myself there were no more conservative Democrats. They were all socialists and I was really a republican with 'democrat' on my voter card.
This is what we are seeing in Georgia. It has suddenly become okay to admit that the Democratic party left them eons ago.
This is a BIG thing. This is a good thing. It's a sign that Dems 'by tradition' all over the country are beginning to wake up to the fact that the Democratic party was hijacked by the socialists long ago and there is no room for them unless they are willing to be socialists too.
Many of these people are good conservatives. We want them.

[BARLF]

Didn't Alabama Senator Shelby switch from D to R?

[calenel]

"This is a BIG thing. This is a good thing. It's a sign that Dems 'by tradition' all over the country are beginning to wake up to the fact that the Democratic party was hijacked by the socialists long ago and there is no room for them unless they are willing to be socialists too.
Many of these people are good conservatives. We want them. "

I agree. "Republican" is no longer a slur in Georgia and some of these people are beginning to realize it. Democrat doesn't stand for what it did even 20 years ago. If the Rat party takes a hard left, expect more jumpers. If there is enough of it, maybe the rest will just admit, finally, that they are socialists.

Shatter the Left!

[lonestar]

I grew up in East Texas; met the first Republican when I was sixteen. My mother whispered, "They're Republicans." Their daughter was John Tower's campaign manager.

My parents voted for Ike and Republican thereafter.

The Democrats in Texas were always conservative and the only ones left are "my daddy was a Democrat" types who are literally and figuretively brain dead.

[AnAmericanMother]

While I'm not a big fan of "special pleading", Georgia really is an atypical case.

The Dems have had a stranglehold on all branches of government since Reconstruction. I was talking with my boss today (he's from VERY conservative North Georgia, up Zell Miller's way). Tom Murphy (the uncrowned king of GA for the last 28 years or so) habitually cut all funding to any district whose rep ran as a Republican. My boss's home county is so conservative they all went Republican years ago -- but they haven't gotten one thin dime from the State treasury since. Not one hospital, not one road project, no nuthin'. You may be ideologically pure, but it's hard to say it out loud when your constituents have to drive 50 miles to a hospital.

So what you have here is a pent-up demand for Republicans that have been artifically held under the Democrat label in order to avoid losing State projects. With Tom Murphy gone and Roy Barnes gone, they can finally admit to the truth - they've been DINOs for a long time.

[LittleBoPeep]

DEMOCRAT party, not DEMOCRATIC party.

[republicangel]

Thank you for putting it so well. My father told me when I was 18, "even though we always vote Republican, you have to register as a Democrat. If you don't, you won't get to vote except in the presidential elections." Most elections were decided in the democrat's primary. Thank goodness it has changed over time.

[rebel]

You are correct!!

Rural Georgians have finally realized that the Democrat party no longer represents them and their conservative values.

Before if you were republican your district would be denied programs and your bills would be buried simply because you were republican. It would not have been in the interest of their constituents to switch. But now they can act on their values without fear of democrat reprisals.

[Regulator]

People in the rest of the country, and especially young people and immigrants have no comprehension of what just happened in Georgia, which you rightfully point out is a BIG thing. The Solid South for the Democrats is gone, just as LBJ feared in 1964.

It will now be the Solid South for Republicans, and as the last 37 years have shown, it takes Southerners a long time to be convinced, but once they are, then their minds are made up. And that means we will no longer have to contend with Southerners voting for the likes of Clinton, just out of loyalty.

And it means that conservatism in American government may actually be here to stay, because it took the Southerners years to change their minds this time, and probably will take just as much time to change them again.

Good!! Welcome Home.

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

"Many of these people are good conservatives"

You are exactly right. People from outside of the south cannot understand what is happening here. Southerners are VERY loyal to a cause and during reconstruction, they were all consevative democrates. Over the years they have slowly come to see that it is the Republican party that now best represents us.... I remember when my parents switched, it was a big thing and not done lightly. I am excited that finally the Dem-hangers-on are realizing that their party is NOT what it used to be. Its an exciting time to be a southerner!

[Hodar]

And what of the people who believed in what this DEM was touting? Their vote counted, and they were defrauded out of their vote. It's no different than what Jeffords did. We have to assume that people know who they are voting for (even though most don't); otherwise the logical change is to have senate appointees. I feel that is unjust for a Senator to change party affiliation after his constituents have aligned themselves behind what his stated beliefs were. They have been deceived.