There's a first time for everything

Hello everyone!

I've discussed my political viewpoints with family & friends for many years now. I have voted Republican for four presidents: George H. W. Bush in 1992, Bob Dole in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000 and George W. Bush again in 2004.

However, it was around the time of the 2004 election that I began referring to myself as a "Reluctant Republican". The Iraq war was starting to go badly, there were almost daily gaffs by Bush and I watched our federal budget deficit ballooning.

I was never an enthusiastic supporter of the Preemptive War concept. But I took some solace in Thomas Friedman's D-Day column in which he referred to "turning lemons into lemonade". Like Friedman, I, too was hopeful. But then I saw the degree of incompetence in which the peace (occupation) of Iraq was conducted and I was horrified.

Nonetheless, I voted for Bush a second time thinking he was "the man to fix Iraq". Unfortunately, I was wrong. Iraq didn't get better, it got worse. And there were increasing challenges to my faith in the party at home. The Terry Schiavo case dealt a mortal blow to my confidence in the party. Why would the party of "smaller government" and a party based on the precept of "staying out of people's lives" go to such great lengths to control the private, personal lives of two people? I was particularly sickened by Tom Delay's disgusting comments.

Next came the scandals of Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff. The Republican party appeared rife with corruption. I wasn't amused. Iraq continued to get worse. "But look at the economy" I would say -- "if Bush was so wrong, why was the stock market at 14,000? Why is home ownership at record levels?" And then the economy began to tank. Incredulous, I watched a Republican administration partly nationalize our banking system.

Although I supported McCain in 2000, I became an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama. And I decided to put the proverbial pen to paper and begin blogging on my thoughts. Imagine my surprise when I checked out Blogger.com to see that Relucant Republican was taken. As was The Reluctant Republican. And Rational Republican. I could see I was not alone.

So I settled on (Another) Reluctant Republican.

Welcome!