The Republicans have even lost Charles Barkley:
July 20, 2006 — THE reverb is still echoing over Dan Quayle’s walkout in the middle of a John Mellencamp concert in Lake Tahoe last weekend. The singer-songwriter introduced his tune “Wall Talk” by announcing, “This next one is for all the poor people who’ve been ignored by the current administration.” As Quayle exited, the former veep explained, “I didn’t appreciate the comment, and besides, I didn’t think the show was very good.” But Mellencamp said he couldn’t care less that Quayle got his knickers in a twist: “I certainly wouldn’t have changed a word.” NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley backed Mellencamp, saying, “He’s right.” While that may sound odd coming from a former conservative, Barkley told a local reporter, “I was a Republican - until they lost their minds.”
He was a republican “until they lost their minds.”
I’d love to hear him tell us all WHEN he thinks that happened.
Dumbass.
It seems the Republican party of thirty years ago no longer exists.
In the 1980s, so many southern Democrats were defecting to the Republican party that the Republican party as we knew it more or less disappeared by the time Newt Gingrich became House Speaker. Republicans, without changing their name, became a distorted Southern Democratic party. They hung on to some old Republican ideas for a while, until Tom DeLay and George W. Bush threw them out the window and gave us populism for the wealthy and platitudes for the middle class and moralistic lectures for the poor.
It’s a very strange history. Now Republicans are the ones who are leaving. I wish I knew of a list of prominent names who have left the Republican party. Without looking up the names, I think of Arriana Huffington, David Brock, Wesley Clark (?) and now Charles Barkley.