I have had a long hiatus from posting, due in large part to a hand injury that severely limited my ability to type for quite some time, and threw me into a tailspin both physically and mentally for even longer. But the primary reason for my relative silence over the past several months is because I have been conflicted over whether I should continue to post as PalinDemocrat on my own blog and others.  Not because of the Palin part—because my admiration for her has only grown in recent months—but because of the Democrat part.  The actions of the Democrats over the last few years in general, and the last few months in particular, have caused me to question whether I want to be associated with that party in any way, even nominally.

The name itself seems to produce a visceral reaction across the political spectrum. When I joined TeamSarah and started posting as PalinDemocrat, the near universal reaction among conservatives was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and quite a bit of foaming at the mouth. And the reaction on many PUMA blogs was not much better. It was even decreed on one of them that PalinDemocrat was an oxymoron, and I might as well call myself an atheist Christian.

Personally, I don’t see the conflict. I am not an Obamacrat, and I never will be. But I was raised Democrat the way many people are raised Baptist, or Episcopalian. Everybody in my family was a Democrat, as were most of the people in my circle of friends and acquaintances. For most of them, it boiled down to “Republicans represent the rich man, Democrats represent the working man.”.

That is no longer the case, and hasn’t been for a very long time. As near as I can tell, neither major party has any interest in representing working people. The Democrats might pay lip service in an election year, and throw an occasional bone to the unions. But the reality is that they all serve corporate masters, in many cases the same ones. If they had to wear logos for all of their corporate sponsors, in proportion to the funding that they receive, their suit jackets would all weigh at least 50 pounds.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, has walked a mile in many of our shoes. She has worked her way up wearing a blue collar around a red neck, and she was willing to take on corruption in both parties to do it. The elites in both parties fear her because they know that she can relate to ordinary Americans in a way that they can’t, or won’t.

She has been the largest and most effective (and in many cases the only) speed bump on the road to Obamanation.  I don’t and nor do I have to agree with her on every issue to support that effort. And I don’t feel any particular need to abandon my political identity because my party has been hijacked by radical racists and nasty misogynists.

So at the end of the day I have decided that I will remain PalinDemocrat for as long as it suits me, but the list of Democrats I will be supporting and voting for in the near term will be very short indeed.  I can count them on one hand. Or more accurately, on one finger, one which will is directed to the Obamacrat Party for the foreseeable future.

I had a choice between attending two meetings last Thursday night. The meeting of the local Tea Party, which is just getting started, and the meeting of the local Democrat Party. Since I wanted to go to both, and couldn’t figure out how to be in two places at once, I had to compromise.  

The tea party started first, thirty minutes earlier than the other one. So I went early enough to meet the candidates who were there before the meeting started. One of the candidates for Georgia’s 9th district Congressional Seat was there, and one of the candidates for Attorney General, and I wanted to shake their hand and take their measure.  

Then I went across the park to the library, where the Democrat meeting was being held, and once again found myself taking someone’s measure. Only these were all people that I knew, some of them for a long time. I know their families, one of which is my own. I know how they were raised, and I know what kind of people they are.  

One of those people was my brother, who was resigning after 12 years as the Chairman of the local party. Sitting beside him was the guy who had agreed to become the new chairman (yes, they had to talk somebody into it), who I will refer to as Obama-man. I call him that because he has never been involved in local politics until 2008, when he went to one of the OFA training camps, and started working with the local parties as per their instructions.  

Obama-man’s father was one of my father’s best friends when we were younger, and his sister was one of my best friends. During our high school years, I spent as much time at their house as I spent at my own. Sitting beside Obama-man was a woman that I will call Dee, whose family has been  involved in local politics longer and more deeply than my own.  

 I had to bite my tongue several times, and a few times I didn’t bite quite hard enough. It was painfully obvious that Obama man is still spending way too much time at dailyKooks. When he made reference to “the teabaggers across the street”, Dee told him “That’s so seventh grade.” before I had time to get my tongue out from between my teeth.  

Ditto the comment that Republicans are trying to co-opt the R word, which confused me momentarily. Upon hearing the explanation that they were referring to the word “retard”, I explained my confusion by saying that I thought for a minute that they were talking about the other R word, which has been the Democrat’s response to any questions or criticism for the better part of two years.  

    But I was there on a fact finding mission, and I have found that you can find more facts when you can keep your mouth shut. My other brother, along with another good friend on the County Commission, are both up for re-election this year.  

They have both been elected three times on the Democrat ticket. But they both know that it will be uphill sledding for them this year, because they understand, and for the most part agree with, the current anti-incumbent sentiment. They also know that they are going to be saddled with a national Party agenda that they neither approve of nor agree with.  

So my advice to them is pretty much the same as it has been to all Democrats who are not Obamacrats, whether they are on a ballot or not. We can either leave the Party entirely, loudly and publicly. Or we can stand up within the Party, and renounce the Obamacrats and their behavior, loudly and publicly.  

I have been asked many times why I am still a Democrat, even though I support Sarah Palin and many other conservative candidates, and this is why. I know many of these candidates personally. I know their charachter, and I know their hearts. I have watched them struggle to come to terms with the fact that their Party has left them, for all intents and purposes.  

So I will continue to be a Palin Democrat, at least for now, and I will continue to fight the good fight from both the inside and the outside. I will work for and campaign for these Democrats, as I always have. But that contribution and cooperation will come with a price. And that price is the candidates acceptance of my promotion of the Tea Party movement, and the conservative candidates that I have chosen to support, and my repudiation of the National Democrat Party.  

Read the rest of the meeting HERE.