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I know + + + + + and + + + + + Oliver well enough to throw huge fits of outrage when Dennis persists in signing letters "Respectively" instead of "Respectfully" and Claude with his or his spell check's persistent misuse of "it's," and another friend who thinks IRREGARDLESS IS A WORD FOR GOD SAKES, but I'm not sure about you. People are very protective of their gross grammatical errors, but I'll take a chance and tell you that "respectively" means in the order of something or (to quote the dictionary) "for each separately in turn, or and in the order mentioned"), and letters should be signed "Respectfully," meaning filled with respect -- for which I thank you because I think that is what you meant. I wasn't called "The Dragon Lady" for nothing at Kennewick High School.

I find your comments most interesting and agree with you that the Democrats better smarten up and QUIT RUNNING THOSE EASTERN LIBERALS for President. I have never considered myself to be a liberal, and feel strongly that the Democrats better move toward the center in their next Presidential nomination. I am not an admirer of Ronald Reagan but well remember the attitude toward Jimmy Carter as expressed by a Hungarian businessman when I was in Budapest. He said bluntly that Carter would soon be GONE, that he was a joke. That showed me a European who probably knew more about American politics than many Americans did, but I also felt, "Mister, you do not have the right to vote so your opinion does not count." I will not forgive Carter for deregulating the airlines (many people erroneously attribute this to Reagan) and for shutting down nuclear activity. However, I did enjoy the 12 percent my investments earned. Now I will share your comments with those who are interested, and if you do not want me to do this, just holler. Of course, I will delete + + + + + names after sending this to you, + + + + +. Thanks for the conversation.

Laurel Piippo

Hello again,

You come from quite a distinguished family. When I was younger, I was a fairly liberal third-generation Democrat. When I was 18, I worked all summer on Sen. McGovern’s presidential campaign. That Summer I also ran for Democratic Precinct Committeeman and won with one of the largest majorities in the City of Yakima, I was also the youngest committeeman in Yakima. I went on to be VP and later President of Yakima Young Democrats.

But I became increasingly uncomfortable with the extreme-ultra-left wingers who were taking over the party. Then came Carter. I supported him when he was sitting at 3% in the polls. When he won, I though we finally had a reasonable Democrat that could manage this country. But disaster followed disaster. We became the laughing stock of the world; our economy was in the toilet; we had the Russians who were determined "bury" us; I remember those days – how depressing they were.

Enter Ronald Reagan. I was very skeptical of the man, but he sincerely promised to get the country back on track and make us respected again in the eyes of the world. I went through great sole searching – could I vote for a conservative Republican like Reagan? How would I explain it to my friends and family? Was he just another pile of vocal B.S?

I finally made up my mind to vote for him (BUT not to switch parties) 3 weeks before the election. Ever so slowly, my mind and views began to change as I watched him bring the USA back from the doorsteps of collapse. Then with amazement I watched the Berlin Wall fall and communism came tumbling down – I never thought I’d live to see the day but I did. The economy took off. American seemed proud to be American again. My liberal friends abandoned me, and I finally became convinced that Reagan was right – I finally switched parties.

The once small Republican Party gained ex-Democrats in the droves. These ex-Democrats were fed up with liberalism and failed policies. Good times were back. But as the old saying goes “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.” And this is what I fear has happen to the Republicans. They have become proud, arrogant, and forgotten the lessons that Regan had taught. The republican leadership had better toss these corrupt scoundrels out and get back to their conservative foundation or they might just find themselves back as a minority party again.

As for Bush, what can I say? He’s no Ronald Regan, he’s a dunce. If it wasn’t for daddy, I suspect Bush couldn’t get elected mayor. I never wanted him, I never liked him. But what choice did I have. The Democrats just keep running ultra extreme liberals bozos for President. How can the Democrats ever be expected to run the most advanced country in the world when they have names like Nancy P., Gore, or Kerry? I haven’t seen a reasonable Democratic Presidential candidate run in decades (outside of Clinton who I have mixed emotions about) – that why the American people keep rejecting them election after election.

Well last November, my wife and I sat home rather than go vote for a bunch of corrupt lying politicians. Here’s my advice to the Republicans. They better give up their arrogance and get back to the roots or they’ll end up like the Democrats – morally bankrupt.

Respectively,

****************************************From:

LaurelPiippo@cs.com

To:

LaurelPiippo@cs.com

Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2007 3:33 PM

Subject: Response to a Republican

Response to a person who changed parties:

I read with interest your account of changing from Democrat to Republican. Something must have happened in the Democratic party to horrify quite a few people out of the Party, I'm not sure when, but my guess it was in the early 1950s when the Cold War fears were at their peak. I was just converting from Republican to Democrat, but there were some local Democratic party leaders that made me think they had an agenda different from the one I had in mind -- some of them said things like "each according to his needs" and not having two senators from each state; that is, representation unrelated to geographical location and area. Two other scientists told me a story similar to your disillusionment.

I was born and brought up in South Dakota where Democrats were unheard of. My grandfather was Speaker of the House of the Dakota Territory and as a brilliant attorney wrote most of the Constitution adopted by Montana, Washington, N and S Dakota, and _________ (I forgot) in 1889. He had a photographic mind and could quote the law verbatim. He insisted on including the Initiative and Referendum, which has caused a lot of trouble in this state recently, because the gold interests in western South Dakota. Territory owned the legislature. My grandfather wanted The People to have recourse. He is a legend, and the subject of each family reunion when we old cousins regale the group with our memories of Grandpa Rice. He voted Republican all his life until Herbert Hoover, when he voted for Roosevelt instead, as did many hard-core Republicans of that terrible time. The Depression changed more than one Republican into a Democrat, at least temporarily. Numerous Republicans tell me George W. Bush has disillusioned them out of their Party, at least temporarily.

It never occurred to me to be anything but a Republican until after I graduated from college and became a teacher in Washington state and married a Democrat and gradually came to see the error of my ways.

p.s. LAUREL PIIPPO, Democratic Precinct Committeeman, Precinct 195

I don't know any pinko Democrats active in the Party today. We're mostly old and gray!!! Like the aging population surrounding us, very anti-Bush and very patriotic.

*****Dateline: February 6, 2007*****UPDATE

Recently I received an email from someone who explained why he switched from the Democratic to the Republican party. A friend sent an interesting respose, which I am sharing with you. Laurel Piippo

I also thought I’d comment on some of the opinions of the author.Jimmy Carter’s tone rather than his policies were the problem in the mid 70’s. He was trying to show Americans what Reagan and his ilk put off for awhile. We need to wean ourselves from foreign oil. It’s not that foreign trade is bad, but rather we’re “over a barrel” - an oil barrel – and our own selfishness is keeping us there. I know Americans hate to hear that we’re selfish, but we won’t spend money on good light rail systems and workable bus systems, but insist on maintaining reliance on automobiles. So it’s each soul to him/her self and tough for you if you’re poor and it affects you more. We need to turn down the heat and turn up the dial when we air condition. If we’d done this back when Carter recommended it, would global warming be as bad as it is now? We should never trade arms for hostages even when the hostages are our young men and women. Although Reagan claimed he couldn’t remember giving the ok to do so, facts make it clear that the U.S. did trade arms for U.S. citizens in Irangate. And we mined the coast of Nicaragua so that the World Court had to find us guilty and force us to remove those mines that broke several world laws and treaties. There were well-documented claims that our services were bringing drugs into the country to pay for secret actions and arms and the School of the Americas made trained killers of simple South Americans and encouraged Shining Path terrorists – really scary guys just like Hamas and al Qaida. The Berlin Wall came down because every president since Truman resisted communism and because with home computers, Eastern Bloc nations could see the truth that their governments were keeping from them. Western countries weren’t the devils they’d been painted to be and young people yearned to join the world. – I’d predicted the fall of communism since 1972 . . . because it’s far too idealistic. Humans want to believe in one for all and all for one, but really we’re in it for ourselves. And when 80s’ Eastern Europeans saw the relative plenty in the Western world and the graft in their supposedly pure system, the scales fell from their eyes. Reagan was a tough-talking puppet. He never served beyond making pro-government films, but somehow he believed he’d hoisted a real gun and he made believe he was a hero on the order of “the Gipper”. His charm eluded me. He and Bush senior hid the actual state of our teetering economy and racked up debt and interest on that debt to levels never before seen. Somehow they, like W now, waved off the importance of the debt as well as the source of the borrowed money as not important. This is the source of decay in our current economy.Citizens are going to get a horrifying cold bath once W is out of office when all the war costs that are “off the books” and all the massive borrowing is revealed. Republicans are saying it doesn’t matter whether you borrow money to pay for something or pay cash (taxes). These are businessmen? What about the interest costs? What about having our debt held by those with whom we must have a strong face?

Businessmen – your grandmother’s left hind foot! -- No one wants to pay taxes. Liberals, conservatives, moderates, young, old, black, white…we’d all rather hang onto more of our money, but there’s reality to face. Don’t like reality?

Wait’ll you see how well you like surprise debt load. Does the author have any idea of the number of American big businessmen/women who’ve given up their citizenship in order to avoid taxes? It’s all in the Wall Street Journal when you read it. Having worked for Merrill Lynch for 14 years, I’m no fool about what it takes to accumulate wealth and manage debt load. It isn’t easy. It isn’t sexy. It isn’t fun. It’s patient, persistent, systematic saving. Show me one place where Reagan, Bush 1 or Bush 2 recommended that course of action. No. They and their friends are skimming the profits right off America and taking public money to line their own pockets. I hope we have a competent Democratic president elected in 2008 who’ll instigate investigations into war profiteering by the likes of Halliburton, Brown &Root, all the major oil companies, etc. I would have far preferred John Kerry to the miserable wreck of a president we currently have. Kerry might be a liberal, but he runs with a good crowd economically. Finally, I think we’re lucky to have Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. After that bunch of do nothing know nothings we’ve had in Congress for the past 12 years, at long last the business of the people is being addressed again. I hope the Democrats continue to crack the whip and begin to seriously address the many issues that’ve been back-burnered for so long while corporate America wrote the laws meant to protect us from many forms of pollution and graft. I hope we elect a solid Democrat to the White House. And I hope the Congress and the White House then drop all the political gamesmanship and work together. I like the tension between the left and the right. If neither side is happy, then the system is working.We’re not meant to balance obscene corporate profit on the backs of the nation’s 5 year-olds by short-changing education. (If throwing money at education doesn’t work why do the wealthy pay whatever it takes to send their kids to private schools?) And we’re not meant to drag business under by placing such a burden on them that even well-run enterprises can’t thrive. So give me Hilary or Barak or John Edwards and let McCain retain his position as Senator where he represents all those conservative Arizonans. I guess the joke would be that women and minorities have always cleaned up after white men, but when it’s our economy, our Constitution and our future, it isn’t funny is it?

(Signed by my spitfire friend.)