Samrobb's Journal: Why there is *zero* chance of my vote going to Kerry

[This is part of a comment posted earlier today... I have been thinking about this for a bit, and finally took the time to pull some of my thoughts together to explain exactly why I just don't care what Kerry has to say.]

I was once a registered Democrat; I'm now a registered Republican, and I doubt that I'll ever go back to the Democratic ticket. Why? While I was a Democrat, I never had a Republican call me stupid. I never saw conservative think tanks come out with a study showing that my political affiliation implied that I was disconnected from reality. I never had a member of the "other party" refer to me as if I were less than human because my opinions differed from theirs.

As a known conservative, particularly in this election season, I have been on the receiving end of enough hatred, bigotry, and invective directed at me to last a lifetime. Most of it has come from strangers who know nothing about me other than that I'm a registered Republican, which makes me an instant candidate for their own personal two-minute hate. The only "fact" that matters to them is my party affiliation, which they apparently believes gives them the right to be abusive, insulting, and treat me as if I were some sort of sub-human.

So... even if I were convinced that Kerry was a better candidate than Bush, I would be voting against him, purely becuase of his association with such an arrogant, hateful, spiteful, and all-around viscious politcal party.

Mind you, not all Democrats subscribe to this philosophy - thank God for that. So long as that's true, there's still some hope for the party. However, the party in general - and the leadership in particular - has gotten progressively more hateful and viscious over the last 20 years. For me, at least, they have finally reached the point where their actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear what they say. Their "facts", opinions, and interpretations are useless to me, becuase before I can even enter into a debate with them, I have to at least implicitly agree to their negative characterization of me and my opinions - because unless I do, they are unwilling to consider my "ignorant" and "uninformed" point of view.

Until the actions of the Democratic party leadership and the rank and file show me that they've lost their penchant for assuming their own inherent superiority, and their relyiance on hate speech and ad homenin attacks instead of rational argument... well, I'm going to be ignoring them. I just don't care what they have to say, because the only way I can hear it is to put up with an earful of hatred and hostility. No thank you.

That's funny...

[Rick the Red]

My experience has been exactly the opposite. I find that Republicans think (and say, to my face) that I'm an idiot for not voting Repubican. They (from the folks I attend church with through the guy now running for Congress in my district on up to the current President of the United States) use the term "liberal" as if it's a code word for "terrorist supporter". The state Republican Party just today sent me a mailing telling me to vote for their candidates for Governor, Attorny General, Senate, and some oth

Re:That's funny...

[Samrobb]

I'm not voting Democrat because of "some Democrats". It's the activities of the Democratic party's leadership that I find repugnant. While I'll admit that there's good people and bad people in both parties, I think that the current Democratic leadership has made a habit of routinely engaging in some of the most viscious political hackery that this country has ever seen.

I look at the Republican party and I see a political organization that has principles that the majority of the party leadership seems t