www.WrensJournal.blogspot.com

I just sent this out as a letter-to-the-editor:

Why I'm a Democrat
by John Wren

On December 5, the deadline for affiliating with a party to be able to vote in the February 5 precinct caucus, I became a Democrat. A friend says I’m BAD, a Born Again Democrat. Some of my friends are asking why.

I started my political life as a Democrat. When I cast my first vote for President in 1968, it was for Hubert Humphrey. My friend was disappointed I didn’t support Eugene McCarthy.

A few years later when I owned a small business, Richard Nixon sent me what seemed to be a personal letter. This was before the wide spread use of word processors, so I wasn’t hard to fool.

Nixon’s letter got me thinking about politics, so when my business failed and I retreated to graduate business school at the University of Denver, I was easy pickings for cute girls at the College Republican’s table at registration.

This was during Watergate, so it was easy to rise to the top of College Republicans. Soon I was State Chair, meeting with Dwight Hamilton, Bob Tonsing, and the Colorado Republican’s Executive Committee each month. I helped Karl Rove give seminars around the country teaching about how to appeal to young voters. I appeared on a Republican National Committee TV special called “Republicans Are People, Too.” At that year’s National Convention here in Colorado, Karl and I met Dick Wadhams (then 18-years old, now Colorado GOP Chair).

Since then, I’ve been a Republican precinct committee person, district captain, and volunteer for various Republican candidates and organizations. In 2002 I was part of Save the Caucus which defeated Amendment 29 which would have killed our wonderful Colorado grassroots political system.

Over the years, everyone who I’ve respected, from Karl Rove to Phil Perington (past Colorado Democrat State Chair who was driving force behind the Save the Caucus effort) have said that it is important to affiliate with one of the major parties, but which one was a matter of personal taste.

Democrats are slightly biased towards justice, Republicans towards freedom, but they are both for freedom and justice. The 2-party system that has served us so well over the years is just a tool for encouraging good debate between the best and the brightest each party can put forth for each office. It’s like sports; I cheer for my team, but I’d be insane to believe my team was God’s choice, too.

David Fogel (past Denver County Dem Chair who helped with Save the Caucus) and Republican leaders I’ve spoken with privately have said that what makes the most sense politically is to join the majority party in your county if you are interested in helping improve local government. Pat Waak and Dennis Gallagher seemed open to the idea of me changing. So that’s what I’m doing. After 30 years, I’m a Democrat again.

Why now? The final blows were: 1) A note I got from a Denver Republican volunteer telling me that if I was prolife, they wouldn’t help me as a precinct committee person, making concrete the underlying current in the Denver GOP; 2) I was sensitive to this issue ever since I’d had no cooperation from a former Republican district captain because of the same issue; and 3) Finally, when Denver GOP leaders were so forceful about their support of pro-death candidate Rudi Giuliani. It became clear it was time for me to leave.

Besides, my beautiful finance Mary is a Democrat! She has shown me the light! We hope to both be volunteers at the Convention here next summer. Who knows, maybe we’ll decide to get married then. But that may be too soon. We’ve only known each other for 42 years; you don’t want to rush into these things!