DougR, I'm curious. Which part(s) of Don Firth's posts do you not agree with? Is it his facts or his conclusions? I would like to find you credible, but you make it difficult, since you tend not to say what you actually believe and what your thought processes are. As Bobert said above, you tend to offer one liners.

And yes, I too started out Republican (I thought. Or didn't think. My father was a loud conservative.) Voted for Nixon, didn't vote for Kennedy. It was not until Robert Kennedy started asking telling questions that I started doing a bit of thinking. Then of course, he died.

I'm still not registered Democrat, but Non-Partisan, and in theory still vote for an occasional Republican. In actual practice, it's been a long time.