Many common-sense conservatives and moderates feeling more at home with Democrats.

I've been asked - sometimes politely, sometimes notsomuch - why I can make my home with Democrats when I am an evangelical Christian and otherwise tend to common-sense centrism and moderation.

Why, goes the line, can you make your home with those extremist liberals?

I've tried to calmly explain that, for one thing, you don't have to agree with everything in your political party to make a home there, as long as you think some effective progress can be made by carving out a niche within the party. For another thing, many Democrats in Arizona aren't generally as wildly liberal as they're painted by the extremists on the right wing. Many of us are either conservative or fairly moderate, or exhibit our progressive tendencies in areas which, traditionally, were the purview of conservatives (such as civil liberties).

Indeed, many Republicans I encounter have some very strange attitudes and misconceptions about moderate Democrats. For example, I was recently castigated by a fellow evangelical for being a Democrat and supporting "late term abortions". I had mentioned nothing about my position on abortion at all, but somehow, my acquaintance assumed it, and missed by a mile.

I had to explain that, no, I most certainly do NOT support late term abortions, for goodness sake! I also had to explain that, in fact, Arizona law prohibits it. And what's more, every Democrat I've ever met (and discussed this with), including those actually working for Planned Parenthood, is happy with that law. It's a bald-faced lie that Democrats as a group are in favor of late-term abortions - a lie that has been propagated by Republicans trying to demonize Democrats among social conservatives. Somewhere, somehow, this fellow had just bought into the propaganda and never thought to question it, I guess.

As I've said before, I'm conservative on some things and progressive on others. And on the things I don't have a strong opinion about, well, I try to take as common-sense an approach as possible.

But speaking more broadly, the Republicans have shifted so far to the right that the party itself has abdicated many of its foundational, conservative principles. Principles which, in many ways, are now far more effectively championed by the Democrats. To illustrate, allow me to point to two articles that make the case far more eloquently than I could.

The first is an article by Markos Moulitsas, known to many folks on the internet simply as "Kos", and known to many right-wing pundits by far less flattering epithets. Kos is the owner of the blog DailyKos, with perhaps one of the largest followings in the USA. He is a Democrat who, like me, recently switched from being a Republican. And he's relatively moderate in the political spectrum, though many folks on the right wing have spilled a lot of ink and vitriol to paint him as a raving Marxist.

Kos recently penned a short essay exploring the growing libertarian elements of some of us in the Democratic party. He noted that the Democrats are becoming the party championing civil liberties, which used to be the purview of the Republican party. Nowadays, it's the Republican party that is working hard to roll back civil liberties, constitutional protections and right to privacy.

Kos also noted how Democrats are becoming the go-to party for fiscal spending restraints, such as PAYGO, while the Republicans have repeatedly obstructed PAYGO. Republicans have voted repeatedly to pass record high deficits, a gargantuan debt and worked to establish a monstrously bloated government. In no way can the borrow-and-spend Republicans be considered fiscally conservative, or even fiscally responsible, today.

Kos also noted how the government isn't the only threat against personal freedom, but unregulated corporations, focusing only on their bottom line, can be just as serious a menace to individual liberty. Republicans, on the other hand, have become the party of corporatists, enabling the robber barons of the 21st Century to exploit the environment and individuals.

In all of these issues, the Democrats, he argued, are actually championing many of the key, traditionally conservative, libertarian ideals that Republicans have abandoned.

Needless to say, this thesis resulted in a flurry of writing to parse and anayze Kos' essay. Many Libertarians (with the big "L"), thought it interesting, while others could not get past other elements of the Democratic ideology. In response, Kos penned this short essay, which I think eloquently speaks to the issues and puts the "Libertarian Democrat" theme in proper context. I offer it as Exhibit One in support of my membership in the Democratic party.

As for Exhibit Two, I will present this editorial, from Steve Rose, the Chairman of the Johnson County Sun, a very conservative paper in Kansas. Mr. Rose explains why his paper, traditionally a bastion of conservative and Republican endorsements in one of the reddest of red states, is endorsing so many Democrats this year. It is so eloquent, that I have to include a passage here:

"...I always beat up on Democrats in my columns. I have called them leftists, socialists, and every other name in the book, because I thought they were flat-out wrong.

And, for the most part, I still do. I am opposed to big government. I have little use for unions. I never liked the welfare plans. I am opposed to weak-kneed defense policies. I have always been for fiscal prudence. I think back to the policies of most Democrats, and I cringe.

So, what in the world has happened?

The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally.

You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore, because these candidates never get on the ballot in the general election. They lose in low turnout primaries, where the far right shows up to vote in disproportionate numbers.

To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I'm talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education.

Note, I did not say it means "anti-abortion," because I do not find that position repugnant, at all. I respect that position.

But everything else adds up to priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican Party I once knew.

That's why, in the absence of so-called traditional Republican candidates, the choice comes down to right-wing Republicans or conservative Democrats.

And now you know why we have been forced to move left."