No Longer a Republican

Dennis Miller is one cool cat, to use an expression he might use. Miller has an exceptional vocabulary, an encyclopedic memory, a razor wit, and a unequalled command of the art of the metaphor. I love Dennis, absolutely love him.

Today he had Mike Murphy of NBC news and Time magazine as a guest on his radio show. Murphy is one of those northeastern Republican political pundits . . . let's not go there . . . and the topic of discussion was Sarah Palin, her resignation, her impact on the McCain ticket, and her possible political future. Murphy is no Palin fan. Too bad for him.


There were several things I disagreed with Murphy on, but I think the thing that grated on me the most was the apparent lack of understanding he displayed of what is going on with the Republican "base." Rank and file conservatives are fed up with how they have been treated lately by the Republican party and Murphy doesn't get that.

According to Murphy, Palin was a drag on the McCain ticket because she didn't add anything. Admitting that she was a charismatic and engaging figure, Murphy could not see how that was anything McCain really needed. I won't quote him from memory, but the gist of his point was that McCain needed someone who would bring in swing voters and Palin could not do that. All she could do was energize a base that was going to show up for McCain anyway.

Wrong.

Murphy said to Miller something akin to Come on, Dennis, those guys were going to the polls for McCain anyway. Do you think they would vote for Obama?

Wrong again. I wanted to talk to this guy so badly, and they did take some callers but I was not in an area for a good signal, so I didn't try.

Mike Murphy could not be more wrong. I was not going to vote for John McCain. I did not like him. I viewed him as a compromiser. I viewed him as a man who epitomized the problem with the Republican party and I absolutely, positively was not going to vote for John McCain.

And, no, Mike Murphy, I was not going to vote for Generalissimo Obama either.

I had made up my mind to go to the polls, vote in every other race, then for President vote for Ronald Reagan as a write-in candidate. My first Presidential election was 1988 and I never had a chance to pull the lever for the Gipper and I thought that this way I could at least tell my grandchildren that I had.

But John McCain was not getting my vote. Period.

Then McCain picked Sarah Palin as his veep and I decided I would vote for them . . . her. So I did.


So, yes, Mike Murphy, Sarah Palin did add something to McCain's ticket. She added me and along with me a whole lot of other frustrated, disgusted conservatives who had also planned on sitting out. If not for Palin it would have been far uglier than it was.

As for me, after seeing how the McCain campaign treated Palin, and after noting that not one Republican political figure would stand up for her, I dropped out of the ranks of the Republicans. I now consider myself a constitutionalist--a libertarian independent. And I will never vote for a moderate Republican again--for anything.