I am a RINO

Since I'm sort of running for office around here, I thought I'd make my political affiliation clear to y'all.

My name's DaddyBear, and I'm a RINO.

Now, before you let loose with the rotten vegetables and paving stones, let me explain.

I was brought up in a bluest-of-the-blue, pro-union Democrat home.  My mother was what you could call a mixed-up hippie.  Due to her upbringing in a Navy home, with her father and brothers in the service, and being married to a Vietnam vet, she knew that all of the anti-military rhetoric was nothing but hot air.  But she was all about entitlement programs, environmental programs, affirmative action, and all of the other liberal things that were in vogue during her lifetime.

My father was an upper-Midwest, agricultural Democrat and for a time was the president of his union local.  I guess that pretty much explains his leanings.

As a young boy, I was taken to the local Democrat headquarters and stuffed envelopes, fetched coffee, and the like.  I was sent out to help with taking yard signs to little old ladies, and my parents thought they were doing everything they could to make a good Democrat out of me.

Imagine their surprise when I came home from school one fall day in 1980 and announced that I had voted for Ronald Reagan in a class election as part of our social studies work.  You'd have thought I came home and announced that I was really running off to join the circus.  Her mood wasn't enhanced when I explained that Carter was an idiot, and I wasn't going to vote for the man or anyone like him.

So I was a Republican from a pretty early age.  I volunteered for the Bush campaign in 1988, which did nothing for my social standing at my Bay Area high school.  I was in the military for the Clinton years, and saw all the damage that both he and the Republicans in Congress did while having big schwanz waving contests with each other.  It was also during those years that I learned that "Anyone But Clinton" was not a campaign strategy, which is why I refuse to accept the "Anyone But Obama" strategy the GOP is working with this time around.

But I'm not a robot, and I refuse to be programmed.

I guess I explain my political leanings by saying "I'm a Republican, but....":

• I'm a Republican, but I don't care who someone is sleeping with or wants to marry.
• I'm a Republican, but I think Bush made a lot of huge blunders in his presidency, most of all in his domestic security agenda and the agencies and policies that we're dealing with because of it.
• I'm a Republican, and I think that abortion is an evil, dreadful practice, but I dislike the government telling me or anyone else what to do with their body even more.
• I'm a Republican, but I don't support the party when it says it wants to cut spending then spends money on their own pet projects and favorite companies.
• I'm a Republican, but I will vote for a candidate from another party who I believe is the best person for the job.  Voting a straight party ticket is for sheep, not citizens.

There is more, but I think you get the picture.  If  you've been reading my ramblings here for a while, you can see that I'm not exactly cut from a completely Republican cloth.

I guess what I'm saying here is that while I self-identify as a Republican, I don't always follow the party line.  If I were in Congress, the party whip and I would always be at loggerheads.  I believe what I believe, and I don't let my party tell me what to believe, how to vote, or who to support.  I stay with the party because there's still some hope that the libertarian wing, whatever that is, will have enough influence to swing us away from the big government, daddy-state wing.  It's not a lot of hope, and I've considered just becoming an Independent, but I'm not there yet.

Anyway, I'm DaddyBear, and I am a RINO.