Thanks for the replies! FWIW, I figured there must be SOMEBODY out there who was switching from Democratic to Republican in 2004; I just hadn’t heard from them, and wanted to do so. MLS, while I find your speculation to be completely unconvincing, that’s your right; you get to vote for whoever you want to. I’d just respectfully ask for you in 2004 to vote for current candidates and not against Al Gore; but you probably already know that.
I worded the question the way I did because I wanted to hear specifically from people who were moving right. Of course, vanilla, I wasn’t expecting to hear from a Green-turned-Republican; however, weirder things have happened in politics, and sometimes people have “epiphanies” that cause them to change their views radically.
What I’m hearing, both from John’s Ed Koch piece and from MLS, is that security is the main reason for folks to have a rightward swing. If it comes out that Bush distorted the reasons for going to war, MLS, would that change your opinion that he took the right steps post-9/11?
FWIW, I’m not convinced from the Koch piece that Koch voted for Gore in 2000; he sounds conservative enough that he might have voted Bush then. But maybe I missed an important line in the article.
Libertarian, it’s especially interesting to hear your perspective. In my admittedly limited experience with Libertarians, I’ve found them to care a lot more about financial issues than about personal freedoms, and when I’ve talked to Libertarians who don’t vote for their namesake party, they tend to vote Republican. It’s refreshing to hear from one who prioritizes non-economic freedoms.
Koch has been known to put personal grudges before party or principle before, as in his endorsement of (I believe) Pataki over Schumer for the Senate. I also seem to recall his being miffed at Gore for some damn-fool reason, and it wouldn’t surprise me if that had something to do with his current statements.
Even the Koch example of the OP answer, lone as it is, doesn’t mean much. He also may indeed be a Democrat by name, but Bloomberg is a Republican by name, and it would be hard to find anything in the way either has acted as NYC mayor to derive a party affiliation from.
Interesting; I see nothing in those statements whatsoever to lead to such a conclusion. He doesn’t mention being in the same party as Gore, and a vote for Lieberman doesn’t equal a vote for Gore. Indeed, Gore or Clinton are conspicuous only by their absence in that list of prominent Democrats who are members of the same party as Koch.
Of course his “lifelong Democrat” phrase doesn’t convince me, given that he’s getting ready to vote for Bush. It was nonspecific. And just as certainly your second quote does convince me, because it is specific. Why is this such an issue for you?
Never let it be said a point is so nitty that I will not pick it. I doubted your conclusion based on a link whose veracity I considered beyond doubt; when you offered more information, I agreed with your conclusion.
At any rate, it was a minor question immaterial to the main point, inasmuch as we’ve got some real live folks in the thread who voted for Gore before and plan to vote for Bush this time around; I appreciate your offering evidence, though, that a well-known former Democrat fits the criteria.
Well, as long as we’re picking nits here… I’d submit that Koch’s position is a lot more meaningful than any of our esteemed posters here.
Clealy he holds some influence among certain Democrats, and can conceivably be seen to represent the “Lieberman wing” of that party. Sure, Lieberman isn’t polling well in the primary, but the Iraq War is his hinge issue. I think it’s very reasonable to assume that those Dems voting for him now hold the war as a key issue. If only 1 or 2% of Democrats take that into the general election, it would be very significant. And I think that is a low end estimate of the reality. Which was, IIANM, the main point of the OP.
That would be the main point of the OP if those 1 or 2% of Democrats definitely voted for Gore last time. And that may well be the case; I don’t know. Geenrally speaking, I’m under the impression that folks who considered military matters to be very important voted for Bush last time.
Maybe it’s true that enough people now both consider military matters to be more important, and consider Bush to have acquitted himself well militarily, that there’ll be a move in his direction away from the Democratic party. I’d love to see some polls that segment people that way - that ask people who they voted for in 2000, who they plan to vote for in 2004, and if they’re switching parties, the reason for their switch.
Well, as Koch and MLS pointed out, 9/11 “changed everything”. Back in '00, we were basking in the post-Cold War era where US military action meant dropping bombs on Milosevic-like regimes once in a blue moon.
But, yeah, it would be good to see some polling results. Check out this site and it’s homepage and you might gleen some info even if the exact question probably can’t be found.
I doubted your conclusion based on a link whose veracity I considered beyond doubt; when you offered more information, I agreed with your conclusion.