Most of my family was/is republican. My step-father is a democrat, but of the more moderate variety. I started out at 18 a fairly hard core repub who used to read Limbaugh's magazine. I was thrilled in 2004 when repubs had control of the house, senate and presidency. I thought they would finally cut the government back and get our debt under control. Instead they did absolutely nothing. I never felt the same way about them since.

At some point I took some online quiz and realized my values actually lined up with Libertarians more than Repubs so I switched parties. I voted a straight Libertarian ticket a couple times, but a lot of time there wasn't even a candidate. So I ended up going back and trying to find the repub or democrat I thought was better and voted all around. At this point I no longer identify with any party, especially after I found out Obama was auditing libertarians (and I did get one). Also I don't like that many of the libertarian canidates turned out to be warmed over ex-rinos.

But I will say that I really find the current version of the Democrats completely unacceptable, and besides a few individual moderate candidates who stay away from identity politics, I generally will not vote for them. I am fine with being a protest vote, and hope that my voting will influence more candidates to adopt the values I want. Or maybe there will arise a reasonable 3rd party.

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