You’ll have to forgive my ongoing fascination with these articles. I can’t even explain why I like them so much, or I why I link to them again and again. I know they’re just anecdotal and offer little, if any, predictive value for Election Day, but there’s something about reading items showing Republicans abandoning Bush that makes my day a little better.
Perhaps it’s because I just can’t wrap my head around why Bush continues to enjoy the support he does among Republicans. Aside from party loyalty, I can’t really appreciate why they stick with him and overlook his deceptions, scandals, and failures.
But in any event, Bronwyn Lance Chester, a self-identified Republican with a column in the Virginian Pilot (published in Republican-dominated Norfolk), has written an entertaining column about life-long GOP voters who can’t bring themselves to back Bush this year.
To an ardent believer in free trade, sacrosanct civil liberties, fiscal prudence, government-free bedrooms and avoidance of unnecessary foreign entanglements, Bush’s reign has been literally one disappointment after another.
The number of e-mail screeds I’ve received calling me part of “the liberal media Bush-bashers” after disagreeing with Bush’s stance on any of those policies merely reinforces why dissident Republicans rarely open their mouths. There is always a price to pay.
But to hear Chester tell it, it appears the ranks of Republican Bush-haters are growing.
But some dissenters are beginning to quietly stir. My electronic inbox, a window through which the breeze of public opinion constantly blows, has lately been filled with missives from fellow party members loath to cast another ballot for Bush.
Why?
“Because I don’t trust him to be honest,” says a fifty-something federal law enforcement veteran who’s voted Republican in every election.
“I feel the president is arrogant and the administration smug and I wonder what the freedom of speech is worth in an administration that personally attacks people who speak the truth.”
Another Virginia GOP-er, a self-described “social conservative,” writes that his White House dissatisfaction “started when Bush stated that the campaign finance ‘reform’ bill he was about to sign ‘is probably unconstitutional’ — and then signed it anyway. That’s dereliction of duty.”
A reader from Mobile, Ala., writes: “I voted for Republicans since Reagan, but I’m giving serious consideration to voting for a Kerry-Edwards ticket.” A Florida reader says, “I changed my registration the day Bush invaded Iraq.”
A retired journalist wrote of his Republican wife, “She doesn’t know what she’s going to do come November.” And on and on.
As to whom they’ll vote for this fall, many are flummoxed. A few say Kerry, but others, spooked by Kerry’s liberalism, say they’ll just stay home. One reader thinks he may “write in Alan Keyes.”
“My friends tell me that I’m abandoning my party in its hour of need,” he writes. “I point out that my party abandoned me first.”
Maybe another reason I like items like these so much is because of group behavioral patterns. I want Republicans to know that it’s okay to turn on Bush because other Republicans have done the same thing. Some people find strength in knowing they’re not alone.
So to my Republican readers who know in their hearts that Bush is wrong, keep your chin up. There are probably more people than you realize who are just like you.