An Open Letter to the Obama Campaign and the Republican National Committee upon My leaving the Republican Party

Senator Obama,

I don’t know if anyone in your campaign will see this. I am sure your staff gets so many letters and responses to the notes it sends out that I am sure many, if not most, must be summarily deleted. Regardless, I am writing because I wanted to state something.

I am (OOOPS! WAS) a registered Republican. I would tell the folks, during election cycles, the ones who called on the phone, those who emailed, those who knocked at my door or asked me for support at public events, that I supported the platform but, at this point, rarely the candidates. It has been about fifteen years since I could vote for a Republican candidate. Some Republicans I see eye to eye with but mostly, lately, I do not. I would tell those asking for contributions or support I would be happy to donate and put in the work when the party, MY party, stopped being hate-mongering hypocrites and became more honest and centrist, became as it was during the days of Lincoln, as it was supposed to be - became as it was during Eisenhower when, in his farewell speech in 1961, the general warned us against the military-industrial complex. He coined the term, as you know. He knew what he was talking about.

Not long ago Garrison Keillor made the point that, as a Republican, he was ashamed of the way the party was acting. He wanted the Republicanism of Eisenhower not the Republicanism of hate. He wanted the Republicanism he knew as a child and had come to trust. The one that worked to end segregation. Not the one that legislated division. The one that worked to increase our freedoms, not curtail them.

Well, I can’t stomach it anymore. After the second night of the Republican convention, I officially changed my party affiliation to Democrat. After hearing the hate and disrespect issue from the mouth of the governor of Alaska I felt I had no choice. Sarah Palin pulled the plug on what was, for me, the painful lingering death of my loyalty to a political party. I visited my government center the next day, changed party and I sent my old voter ID card to the Republican HQ with a note. With THIS note. I wanted it to arrive during the convention so I over-nighted it.

You had my vote from the start but now, you have me in the party as well. I just donated and I’ll carry a sign. Get me a yard sign, a phone list, whatever. We can’t let those hateful hypocrites in office.

Adam Byrn Tritt, M.Ed