Wow, cool! I started off my political life as a Republican. I grew up in Orange County, California, so we didnt know any Democrats. I was a devout Reaganite through high school, and I think it deflected some people from questioning my sexuality, as I was not known for being a ladies' man. In college, I had a gf and continued with my hard-right politics, and was fairly well known as a homophobic,sexist jerk. I had joined a fraternity in college to further try and throw people off my trail. In the late 1980's, I fully came out of the closet after going to rehab for chemical dependency, and I realized that I was not helping my self esteem by voting against my best interests...so I switched parties and supported the presidential candidate who seemed to be the most supportive of gay rights at the time, Jesse Jackson. I'd like to think that everything I do today politically is my way of apologizing to those that I hurt, and my outspokenness about homophobia is my way of giving back and hopefully making it easier for those still in the closet to come out of the closet. Rather a long answer, but maybe a good way of seeing my evolution as a human and as a political animal. I was registered in California with the Green Party, but am now a Democrat, in the hope that I can reclaim my party for the disenfranchised and others who need a voice of progressive activism.

Someone wise once said: "If you aren't a Democrat when you are young, you have no heart. If you aren't a Republican when you get older, you have no brain." I have been through the gamut of beliefs in one party, then another, then Independent, then back to one or the other. I believe those of us who flip-flop like this are simply exercising our desire to find a candidate who will tell us the truth and stand by what he/she says they will do. If you ever find that candidate, please let me know and I will change my party affiliation yet again.

Yes I have. I really believe that as we grow and experience life, if our perspectives don't change and we stay stuck in a rut of thought we aren't living life to it's fullest.Life is change, and always in flux. Some people find it hard to let go of the past and move on.

Sort of, but the party changed in a different direction. I was a Goldwater republican, but was disenfranchised by the NeoCons. I was more closely associated to anarchists and Libertarians. Now I am just apathetic. I am an independent, but I would vote for Dennis Kucinich, John Edward, and maybe Barack Obama (in that order). The two party system does not represent the American people. it should be abandoned.

Oh yes. I started as a ultra-liberal democrat. I have since educated myself on fiscal matters and social matters. I line up mostly with libertarians, but not totally. Really I can't say I belong to any party anymore.

I've never been big on party affiliations, but my parents have both been self-proclained Republicans for most of their lives. They both voted for W in 2000, but have since been so irritated by his governance, that they've now gone 180 degrees and turned Democrat. They even ridcule some of our GOP relatives.

I do not buy into the idea of party loyalty, my views are my own and NO political party will ever agree 100% with me. That said, the party that most closely reflects my views is either the Libertarian party or the Constitution party, as far as I am concerned the Democan and Republicrat parties are just two sides of the same statist coin.

Me! Definitely! I was raised and indoctrinated to be a very liberal democrat. I was taught basically that every wants to do the right thing and if you just educate them properly they will. I was taught that the death penalty is wrong in every circumstance and that most criminals have extenuating circumstances that caused them to do the wrong thing but that they will be rehabilitated in prison and be just like us. Then I spent three years working with juvenile sex offenders. I met parents who grew up in good homes and chose to join the church of Satan and allow their child to be molested by the congregation. I met parents who amused themselves by tormenting their children: stubbing out cigarettes on their bodies, getting toddlers drunk to watch them stagger around and fall, dropping infants out of boats to see if they float... It didn't take long for me to realize that there are people who choose to be like that and no amount of education is going to change it because they like it that way. I figured out pretty quickly that there are folks out there that about all you can do with them is figure out the best way to protect innocents from them. Once I saw how badly mistaken the former viewpoint was, I started question all the viewpoints I'd been taught. And most of them, not all, changed.

My parents were republicans. my brother and sister are republicans. i was a republican because they were. but i realized republicans is not the party for me. call me a democrat. there used to be an old family friend who was a democrat. he was an out cast because he was an out spoken democrat. Pete Peterson. what a character.