Republicans at 20 and Dems at 40. Are the wife and I unique?

[judge_smales]

Or are there others here?

[pmbryant]

1. Smaller transformation here

"centrist independent" at age 20, rabid Dem at age 35. (Actually, rabid Dem by age 23.)

Glad you two have seen the light! :-)

:hi:

--Peter

[felonious thunk]

2. nope

conservative at 19, liberal by 22, liberal still at 30

[denverbill]

3. Well, kinda/sorta.

I turned 18 in 1976. Ford was rather a moderate Republican, and I voted for him, as well as other moderate Republicans. I voted for GHWB in the 1980 primary.

When wacko-conservative Reagan got the nomination, I bolted the GOP. I still voted independent, more or less, for the next 10 years or so.

I wasn't a big Clinton fan. I woulda voted Perot in 1992 if he hadn't wacked out about running at the last minute.

By 1996, it was obvious that Republicans were on a vendetta against Clinton, and that hardened me as a Democrat.

The Republicans have gone so far to the right that there are almost no more moderate Republicans.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Me!

I grew up fairly conservative because our family is part Latvian, and the Republicans were the anti-Communists who would some day liberate the Baltic states. :crazy:

I began having doubts about the Vietnam War in college, because some professors that I respected very much were against it, and I did vote for McGovern in 1972. However, I stayed largely anti-Communist and convinced that the U.S. had only the good of the world in mind until I got a part-time job in the university library system.

I was put in charge of a collection called The Economic Growth Collection, which was mainly about Third World economies but contained a lot of general information books about those countries. Since I had little to do once the books were shelved, I read.

It was an eye-opening experience. Then I read The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, which kept emphasizing the point that the CIA and KGB always knew what each other was doing and that the purpose of secrecy was to keep the nefarious dealings of the CIA secret from the American people.

The more I read, the farther left I went. My other most influential books were America: What Went Wrong? and Endless Enemies, two 1980s-era classics that warned that the U.S. was going off in the wrong direction.

[Cha]

5. Yeah, I read Ethan Hawke made a comment (jokingly I hope)..

that now that he had a family it was time to turn republican. ugh!

[Skittles]

11. that's a stupid thing to say and think

very, very stupid

[woofless]

6. It is not uncommon

for people to become wiser as they age.

[geniph]

7. My husband used to be very centrist

now is becoming rather more liberal (he's 53). I've always been a raging socialist radical left-wing pinko feminazi tree-hugger type (I'm 44) and expect I always will be. Wear your bleeding hearts with pride!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

8. Welcome. No, not odd at all. When you have kids, you

settle into a world view that is different many times. Some people, unfortunately, turn into their RW parents.
Nutcases like me who have Liberal Democratic parents, well, we get even weirder.

[Ratty]

9. Same here

Except I was religious at 20 and a democrat at, like 28. When I dumped religion suddenly all sorts of things started to make sense.

How's the phrase go? A Republican is a Democrat who's been robbed. A Democrat is a Republican who's been arrested.

[Ladyhawk]

12. Ditto :)

When you dump religion and start thinking for yourself a bit, lots of things start to make sense. Unfortunately, some of it--a lot of it--really sucks. Come to find out I don't know everything and I'm not going to live forever. The good part is I'm not going to live forever with a bunch a fundies on a cloud. :)

[proud patriot]

16. Cute parrot

he looks my double yellow head named Chico
well actually it's my dad's bird ...

[catzies]

10. Karl Rove's slimy opinion on the subject:

"As people do better, they start voting like Republican - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing.

To which I counter with Harry Truman's quote: "To live like a Republican, you gotta vote like a Democrat." (paraphrasing)

[Ladyhawk]

13. As people do better, they start voting like Republican.

This would explain why my high school friend went from Dem to Rep. Recently I got back in touch with her, but I have enough buy-bull believin' right-wingers in my life.

[Aristus]

14. Oh, you would have hated me! I was a big Reagan fan!

Just thought he was the greatest. That I didn't know a thing about politics should be obvious from all this. Called him 'Uncle Ronnie' for God's sake. I voted for the first time in 1988, for Bush Sr. and again in 1992. I don't know when my political views changed. At heart,I've always been progressive, but when I was younger, I supported the people who waved the flag the hardest, thinking that was substantive politicking.

Now I know better. I voted for The Big Dog in '96, and Gore in 2000. I called myself a left-leaning moderate. After the Extreme Court decision to give Turd Blossom the White House, I came out of my shell and said: "Dammit! I'm a Liberal! And PROUD to be a liberal! I'm not hiding it anymore!" And I don't.

[THUNDER HANDS]

15. I was a Republican At 20

And a Democrat at 24.

Took me less time than you.

:)

[av8rdave]

17. Former Republican...

until my early 30s. A staunch conservative until I was converted to the Democratic party by George Bush Sr.

[Speck Tater]

18. Born into a Repug family...

... so I thought I was a Repug, but I didn't really pay any attention. Somewhere around age 40 I began to notice that it did matter. When I really looked at the issues for the first time I realized I was too liberal to be a Repug so I registered Indy and became officially a swing voter. Around age 55 I took another close look and decided I was too liberal to be an Indy, so I registered Dem.

Didn't really become "active" in politics until I stumbled across Dean's campaign. Have been very active ever since.

Seems to me my own positions haven't changed very much at all, but the labels seem to have all drifted to the right over the last 40 years or so.