Reply #19: I'll Thank Kansas Democrats. You are doing the work that will save our nation

[Tom Rinaldo]

Democrats in Kansas have my deep gratitude for working to convert Republicans to Democrats. There are reasonable people and unreasonable people in the world. There are people with open minds and people with closed minds. If someone I would describe as closed minded and unreasonable suddenly said "I'm a Democrat now" they would have to be watched very carefully, and it would take a long time for me to trust them.

But I do not believe that anyone who at one point considers him or her self to be a Republican is, by definition, unreasonable and closed minded. Senator Jim Jeffords in Vermont came from a very long time Republican family and he ran and won in Vermont as a very moderate Republican. It pained him deeply to have to break his ties to the Republican Party and become an Independent who caucused with Democrats, but he did it for all of the right reasons, and he did so with his honor and integrity not only intact, but enhanced.

A long time affiliation with a political party is like a gravitational field, it is very hard to break free of, social ties and long held loyalties to friends and co-workers in the Party one is part of bind you to an extent to an identity. But once someone breaks free of those ties they become increasingly free to evolve and change. There have been many former Republicans who did just that, and some who settled for stretching the boundaries of their Party to hold positions that many of us can respect.

There have always been decent Republicans in America. John Lindsy was first elected Mayor of New York City as a Republican Congressman, and he became the most progressive Mayor New York City has seen in my lifetime. Pete McCloskey ran against Richard Nixon the New Hampshire Primary to protest his Viet Nam War policies, and Pete, though remaining a Republican, is backing the Democratic candidate for Congress in his district now. Wayne Morse, who first was elected to the United States Senate from Oregon as a Republican, became one of only two Senators (both Democrats), to vote against LBJ's Bay of Tonkin resolution. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren had been a Republican Governor of California. Current Supreme Court Justice David Souter was a registered Republican when appointed to that Bench. Gerald Ford is a decent man and was a decent President. Howard Baker had personal integrity as the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate during the Nixon Impeachment hearings. Arianna Huffington ran her then husbands Republican campaign for the U.S. Senate from California in the 1990's.

I am just naming names that most people might recognize, but there are tens of thousands of decent Republicans, even today, for every person whose name I can list, and many of them are now realizing that today's National Republican Party does not reflect their personal values, or America's priorities. These are the people we need to reach to prevent Republicans from controlling our National Government in Washington one day longer than is absolutely necessary.

Thank you good Democrats in Kansas, for doing the hard work of conversion, and sometimes even deprogramming, to rescue good people from a Party gone bad. You are leading the way for all of us.