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Title: 'Ditch and switch': Trump may be behind mass Democratic party exodus in Pa., experts say
Source:
PennLive
URL Source: http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/0 ... h_and_switch_trump_may_be.html
Published: Mar 10, 2016
Author: Colin Deppen
Post Date: 2016-03-10 13:02:05 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 1025
Comments: 7
Nearly 46,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have gone Republican since the start of 2016, twice as many as have shifted the other way, as a wild primary fight continues to upend the business of politics as usual and challenge the status quo. Needless to say, much of this movement is being attributed to the rise of Donald Trump and the so-called "Ditch and Switch" movement, which leans on lifelong Democrats to abandon the party, register Republican and help ensure Trump's place in the November general election. A website launched by two North Carolina sisters calling on Democrats to switch political parties and embrace Trump says, "For many years the Democratic Party has promoted agendas that most Americans did not agree with. Our country is deeply divided, and the silent majority has been bullied into silence by political posturing and underhanded agendas that favor the few while excluding the majority." The statement supports Dr. G. Terry Madonna's theory that at least some of the 46,000 Democrats-turned-Republican in Pennsylvania belong to a disaffected class that felt overlooked by elected leaders, or at odds with Democratic party ethos. "With the increase in support in exit polls for Trump among working class, blue-collar Democrats, it is my belief that these are people who fall into that genre," said Madonna, who is director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. "The other possibility is that you're finding some disaffected Democrats who believe the party has moved too far to the left. There are a number of possibilities," he added. A third scenario involves Democrats who have long voted along Republican or conservative lines, but who have only now decided to shed the Democrat label. Whatever their reasons, some almost certainly have to do with Trump's meteoric rise from reality television star to new face of the Grand Old Party. His success has been a flashpoint, both culturally and politically, and has left the Republican establishment in an uproar, and the party on the verge of Civil War, it would appear. But what impact his cross-over appeal, and the party purge it helped spawn, will have on the primary and general election results remains to be seen. It also cuts both ways, with more Latinos vowing to seek citizenship just to vote against Trump, and Democrats vowing to change parties, or not, in open primary states, in a last ditch effort to stop him by lending support to rivals, like Florida Senator, Marco Rubio. But so far, at least, the numbers favor Trump's pull as a conservative evangelist, with evidence of this trend, which has so far disproportionately benefitted Pennsylvania Republicans, turning up in counties across this state and others. In Massachusetts, as many as 20,000 Democrats have gone from blue-to-red this year with Trump cited as a primary reason. And in Ohio, as many as 1,000 blue collar workers have promised to switch parties and vote for Trump. In Pennsylvania, at the Cumberland County Elections Office, director Penny D. Brown said although voters from both political parties have been changing allegiances this year, "there are more Democrats changing to Republican." It was a different story in the 2008 primary, which pitted Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama for the Democratic ticket and saw John McCain nominated by the Republicans, she said. Then, Brown added, more Republicans changed their party affiliation to Democrat than vice versa. In Dauphin County, voter registration is up this year by around 3,000 people, but that number was evenly distributed between Republicans, Democrats and third parties, an official said. In Lancaster County, an estimated 1,125 Democrats became Republicans and 909 Republicans became Democrats in the last two months, according to LancasterOnline. Statewide, there have been party changes reported in every Pennsylvania county, to varying degrees. In Armstrong County, in the southwestern part of the state, elections director, Jennifer Bellas, said most favored the Republicans, although their reasons weren't always clear. "We typically don't ask and they generally don't say," Bellas added. Lori Oliver, elections director with Lebanon County, said from the first of the year through Friday, there were 3,183 party changes there, which included a definite "increase for the Republican party." Oliver said the changes are more than she's seen in three years on the job. In fact, Pennsylvania Department of State records show that the party changes seen in the first two months of this year are twice those seen in all of 2013, and on pace to eclipse those seen in 2014 and 2015 as well. The former saw 19,900 Democrats go Republican and 16,600 Republicans go Democrat; while 29,800 Democrats went Republican and 17,860 Republicans went Democrat last year. And while party switching is certainly par-for-the-course in presidential elections, experts say there is something unique this time around, not only because of the scale of that switching, but also where it's taking place. Five reasons to take Trump seriously This as entrenched political structures are being upended from liberal Massachusetts, now warming to Trump's extreme brand of conservatism, and traditionally conservative corners of the country finding that brand too extreme for them. For voters like Pete Rung, a lifelong Democrat from St. Marys, Pa., who switched to the Republican party and plans to vote for Trump, the move appears to be based around his frustration with the Democratic party as much as anything else. "I switched from Democrat to Republican because I'm a veteran, and any person in their right mind wouldn't vote for Hillary because of what she did to our GI's in Bengazi," Rung was quoted as saying in an interview with the Courier Express newspaper of DuBois, Pa. "And 8 more years of Obama would be a disaster for what she will do to our military. Just ask a veteran," he added. Rung's wife, Valerie, has joined him in defecting for reasons which include a similar aversion to the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency. "I will not vote for Hillary (Clinton), I do not agree with her stand on abortion or gun rights," she told the paper. Does this ad from 1964 predict Trump's future? But it's not just a lack of preferable options that has Democrats fleeing the party. Others have become enamored with the Trump persona and his policies. Conversely, some Republicans are fleeing for the exact opposite reason, saying they no longer recognize the party or agree with the unconventional, firebrand politics that have earned Trump not only a seat at the table, but one driving the bus. In appealing to registered Democrats and Independents, the "Ditch and Switch" website run by North Carolina sisters, Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, bills Mr. Trump's as a "non-traditional approach," one that is "untainted by Washington's one-sided politics, which give power to special interest groups and lobbyists." The statement concludes by saying, "[Trump's non-traditional approach] is the exact makeover that the White House needs in order to 'Make America Great Again.'" Regardless of the outcome, though, Trump's brand of agit-prop political theater won't soon be forgotten. "This has no parallel in modern history," said Madonna, himself a political historian. "You couldn't make this stuff up." 
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#1. To: cranky (#0)
It's what Reagan was able to do: bring over disaffected Democrats by the millions. They voted for him, and they were pleased enough with his performance to vote for him AGAIN. They voted for Poppy Bush too, thinking they would get more Reagan. Instead, they got the dumb old GOP back again, and they abandoned Bush and the Republicans for Perot. The Republicans haven't had a chance of capturing those voters since...until Trump. Trump appeals because he's NOT a traditional Republican, and yet he is quite conservative, and nationalistic, and in favor of workers. He appeals to millions. The party should embrace him and advance him to the nomination. The Establishment folks who oppose him are the ones who are out of touch, and who need to be out of work.
Trump appeals because he's NOT a traditional Republican, and yet he is quite conservative..... In your dreams . Reagan won them over without espousing liberal and big statist positions like Trump does .Reagan spent 30 years being a strong uncompromising spokesperson for conservatism before he ran for POTUS. There’s not a single issue on which Trump is a credible conservative .Most positions that he claims as proof of his conservative credentials are 'Johnny come lately' just in time for the campaign. "If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools." Plato
Spot on.
Ronald Reagan crossed over to the GOP in 1962. He sought the presidency in 1976. He was elected President in 1980. For 12 of the cited 30 years, Reagan was a Democrat. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894529_1894528_1894518,00.html Diana Walker He may be the patron saint of limited government, but Ronald Reagan started out as a registered Democrat and New Deal supporter. An F.D.R. fan, the Gipper campaigned for Helen Gahagan Douglas in her fruitless 1950 Senate race against Richard Nixon and encouraged Dwight D. Eisenhower to run for President as a Democrat in 1952. While he was working as a spokesman for General Electric, however, his views shifted right. "Under the tousled boyish haircut," he wrote Vice President Nixon of John F. Kennedy in 1960, "is still old Karl Marx." By the time it actually happened in 1962, Reagan's decision to cross over to the GOP didn't come as much of a surprise. "I didn't leave the Democratic Party," he famously said. "The party left me."
yes but he was a conservative spokesman for much longer than that . He was a spokesman for GE in 1954 ,and that is where he began speaking up for conservative causes. If he were Trump his conversion would've been in 1975 . "If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools." Plato
Reagan first joined the GOP in 1962 and sought the GOP presidential nomination in 1968. He was a member of the GOP for 5-6 years when he first sought the GOP presidential nomination. It makes little difference as long as he keeps attracting record numbers of voters from among the independents and Dems. Cruz cannot attract support nationwide. Rubio has crashed and burned. Kasich is 0-25, but is fighting to win his home state. Whatever his merits, or lack thereof, Trump is winning.
In June 1967, 6 years BEFORE Roe v. Wade, Ronald Reagan, Republican Governor of California, signed what was at the time the most permissive abortion laws in America. Later, he claimed to oppose abortion, yet he named Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court, both of whom entrenched and extended abortion in the 1986 Casey decision. I would not say that Reagan was a "closet pro-abort". I would say that, until it became a conservative issue that gave him political traction, Ronald Reagan did not personally CARE much about the issue, and was certainly not willing to alienate the voters of California standing against it. And I note that when it came to the Supreme Court, abortion was certainly NOT a litmus test issue for Reagan. This isn't "trashing Reagan". It's simply true. Trump has never pretended to be a conservative evangelical traditional national security Republican. He has different views about national security, about trade, about foreign relations with Israel and Russia and China. He believes in universal health insurance of some sort. The people hear, and they agree. That's why they vote for him.
#2. To: Vicomte13 (#1)
It's what Reagan was able to do: bring over disaffected Democrats by the millions. They voted for him, and they were pleased enough with his performance to vote for him AGAIN.
#3. To: Vicomte13, cranky (#1)
#4. To: tomder55, Vicomte (#2)
Reagan spent 30 years being a strong uncompromising spokesperson for conservatism before he ran for POTUS.
Ronald Reagan, 1962
#5. To: nolu chan (#4)
Ronald Reagan crossed over to the GOP in 1962
#6. To: tomder55 (#5)
He was a spokesman for GE in 1954, and that is where he began speaking up for conservative causes.
If he were Trump his conversion would've been in 1975.
#7. To: nolu chan (#6)
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