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Have you ever changed political affiliation?

Have you ever changed political affiliation? Why, when?

  • Yes, I have switched

    Votes: 23 60.5%
  • No, I have not switched.

    Votes: 6 15.8%
  • No, I would never switch.

    Votes: 1 2.6%
  • I vote for the best candidate.

    Votes: 8 21.1%

  • Total voters
    38

OnWisconsin

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
711
Reaction score
301
Location
Wisconsin
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Libertarian - Left
Just trying to get an idea of how much peoples political affiliation really changes throughout their life. Please give an explanation as to why, and perhaps when you decided to change sides.
 
Just trying to get an idea of how much peoples political affiliation really changes throughout their life. Please give an explanation as to why, and perhaps when you decided to change sides.

Does it count if you end up switching back? I've always voted for the Liberal Party except for a brief period, years ago, when Pierre Trudeau pissed me off and I voted for the Rhinoceros Party candidate in my riding. Okay, it was more of a protest than a change of political affiliation, and the Liberals could never anger me enough to make me vote for the Tories, but I did turn away from them for awhile.
 
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Do you mean change my registration, or just change the party of the people I vote for in a specific election (or multiple elections)?
 
I grew up as a hard core right wing conservative but the Iraq invasion changed my view of things.
 
I used to be hard right as well, but as I got older I find myself looking at issues instead of platforms. As a result I find myself in the ever growing Independent pool and have re-registered to reflect that.
 
Yes, from Republican to NPA when I realized political parties care only about winning, not about ideology.
 
I used to be hard right as well, but as I got older I find myself looking at issues instead of platforms. As a result I find myself in the ever growing Independent pool and have re-registered to reflect that.

Same here, with the folk we have in our AZ legislature, it makes it very easy to become an independent. I find that once you realize that the talking heads for each party aren't the Wizard, and are, in fact some old man behind the curtain, you realize you have been played by both sides.
 
Went from being a GOP as a early teen, to a libetarian socialist, to a marxist, now im a gradual democratic sociailst.
 
I had been thinking about it for a couple of years. The Republicans were embracing stupid, promoting stupid, demanding stupid from, to, at their constituents. Like the Texas Republican plank that said their goal was to keep the students and thereby the voters dumbed down, though that was much later that. Anyway, when baby Bush won the primary from McCain, that was my straw. GWB was the epitome of what was wrong with the Republican party. No more the party of small, lithe government that could get the same jobs done for less by cleaning up waste and fraud (or so I had thought), but now a party of stupid, mean, lazy, evangelical, white, tax-payer subsidized fat cats.
 
I grew up in a Republican family and when I learned more about politics and the parties became more ideological I switched to the Democratic party. I believe my switch began when I listened to Rush Limbaugh at my place of work. I would vote strict party line for Republican. I voted for Goldwater, Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In 1992 I switched and voted for Ross Perot; then in 1996 I voted for Clinton, I have voted for Democrats eve since.
 
When the tea party bumpersticker mentality started taking over the GOP and the theocrats started moving in, that is when the party left me, so I had no choice but to become independent, no use being in their statistics as a member.
 
I was raised in a conservative household and always used to vote straight republican. Now I look at issues. I will admit most of the issues I am concerned with are best supported by the Democrats but I did vote Libertarian two presidential elections ago.
 
I was a Republican until George W's first term. A year into that was enough for me to leave the GOP and register as an Independent. Every passing year my decision to become an Independent makes me wonder why it took me so long to do it. I am very much opposed to most of both parties.

And then there is Arizona. What sane person could live here and support the Teapublicans in the state legislature? Most of the AZ legislature should be in jail, and that is not hyperbole.

I am an issue voter. I'll vote for a candidate, almost always someone challenging the incumbent, but I never vote for a party. Most all the time I vote against the incumbent in Arizona.

On occasion I have worked with AZ legislators, and of course legislative staff. I have testified in hearings regarding proposed legislation and I've been to a few power parties held in Paradise Valley - which I hate going to. NOTHING on earth makes you feel more slimy than being in a room full of them at a social gathering. With the exception of a representative and a senator, both of whom I liked and respected very much (both now out of office), most are narcissistic, deceitful and boring. Quite a few are dimwitted opportunists, think of Dan Quayle or Sarah Palin. Perhaps 95% are or aspire to be career politicians.
 
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Yes after voting for clinton twice and seeing the damage he alone did to our country.

I also noted that the repukes and the demohomosexuals work together and there really is a one party system!

I have become a political atheist! we are all slaves!

bet you did not see this coming
 
I still consider myself a Republican, but I've become "progressive" on a laundry list of issues.



Edit: Geez. It's like a Lutheran congregation in this thread. "I used to be a conservative Catholic, now I'm centrist liberal moderate independent!"
 
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Republican ---> Libertarian

i found i could not support a party which does not uphold the constitution.

during the Bush admin 2000- 2006 when the republicans controlled congress and the WH, i saw debt go up, unconstitutional laws being created, more government coercion, no downsizing of government, the refusal to eliminate the dept. of Ed..Housing and others which are unconstitutional departments along with the continued expansion of the u.s. outside of it borders.
 
I have been Republican since I could vote....but in the last several years I have grown tired of being treated so poorly by those who the party has allowed to represent it, including other Republicans.

I suppose I am no longer considered Republican, and since they don't want me.....I'm gone.
 
While I am not beholden to either party, I vote for the person I think will do the best job, or in recent years, the person who will do the least damage, I've been registered as a lifelong Republican, mostly because there isn't a better party out there.
 
I was quite conservative when I was younger. Turned a bit more liberal as time went on, but the more educated I became, the more libertarian I became.
 
`
I will not vote for a republican. In 2008 I voted for Obama, I was foolish. I voted for Jill Stein in 2012. Democrats no longer have my support. I am fed up with the Democrat/Republican duopoly...two sides of the same coin.
`
 
I was a Democrat by default growing up in West Texas at a time they didn't even ask anybody but just automatically stamped DEMOCRAT on everybody's voter registration. I didn't even consider that a political party made much difference and embraced the theory that you vote for the man, not the party. It was not until the Carter administration that I first recognized the very real damage that was being done by 'progressivism' and how destructive that actually was. And there was something in Ronald Reagan's vision that hit a responsive chord in my libertarian (little 'L') soul. I abandoned the Democrats at that time.

Now I am the first to recognize that the Republicans are every bit as corrupt and self-serving as the Democrats and I have no illusions that there is anything all that noble or commendable in the GOP leadership. But at least the GOP is representing more of us who are lovers of liberty and the America as it was intended to be, and they have to have our votes, so they throw us more bones. And that is why I am a registered Republican so I can vote in the primary in our closed system state, and at least try to get the best Republican offered onto the general election ballot.
 
started voting as an independent (Perot,) and then i became a Republican in the late 1990s. left the Republicans and became a libertarian after they all voted for the "patriot" act and their loyal water carriers lambasted me for not supporting it.

leaving the libertarian party was a slow process, because i was fairly passionate about my libertarian views. however, i had to reexamine them in light of new data, and i came to the realization that we really should have a first world health care system, that trickle down was nonsense, and that the system i would have happily put in place only works in theory. since then, i've been a left of center independent, though i still have a few libertarian views.
 
From independent (which is maybe a lack of an affiliation) to democrat. I still vote for republicans at the state and local level and plan to re-elect my republican governor. But at the federal level, republicans/conservatives have nothing for me right now.
 
I was born and raised an evangelical Christian in a very conservative area. I was very very conservative for many years. As time went on I found more and more stuff that was factually wrong and it led me to question everything. That is why I drift further and further from the right.
 
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