heyacurmudgeon, did you see this is that oh-so-conservative Manchester paper?

At last week's presidential debate, Democrat John F. Kerry took note of an endorsement he received from a man with a familiar Republican name. John Eisenhower, son of the 34th president, last week wrote in a newspaper commentary that he is casting his first Democratic presidential vote in 50 years because of concern about President Bush's policies in Iraq and budget deficits at home.

Eisenhower's flight from the GOP ticket appeared in a place where important Republicans were sure to see it -- the conservative Manchester Union-Leader, in the battleground of New Hampshire. "The fact is that today's 'Republican' Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar," wrote Eisenhower, 82, who has a home near the Eastern Shore community of Trappe, Md. On Iraq, he wrote, "the current Republican leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance."